Sharing Encryption Information Amongst Storage Devices In A Storage System

ABSTRACT

Sharing encryption information amongst storage devices in a storage system, including: detecting that one or more source storage devices has been designated for removal from the storage system; and responsive to detecting that the source storage devices have been designated for removal from the storage system: encrypting a device key for each remaining storage device using a master secret to generate an encrypted device key for each remaining storage device; generating, for each write group, a first plurality of shares from the master secret; creating, from each share of the first plurality of shares, a second plurality of shares equal to a minimum number of the remaining storage devices required from each write group for a quorum to boot the storage system; and storing, for each remaining storage device, the encrypted device key and a respective share of the second plurality of shares in the remaining storage devices.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This is a continuation in-part application for patent entitled to a filing date and claiming the benefit of earlier-filed U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/402,024, filed Aug. 13, 2021, which is a continuation of U.S. Pat. No. 11,128,448, issued Sep. 21, 2021, which is a continuation in-part of U.S. Pat. No. 10,263,770, issued Apr. 16, 2019. This is also a continuation in-part of U.S. Pat. No. 11,630,585, issued Apr. 18, 2023, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/253,934, filed Sep. 1, 2016, which claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/379,502, filed Aug. 25, 2016, each of which is hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A illustrates a first example system for data storage.

FIG. 1B illustrates a second example system for data storage.

FIG. 1C illustrates a third example system for data storage.

FIG. 1D illustrates a fourth example system for data storage.

FIG. 2A is a perspective view of a storage cluster with multiple storage nodes and internal storage coupled to each storage node to provide network attached storage.

FIG. 2B is a block diagram showing an interconnect switch coupling multiple storage nodes in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2C is a multiple level block diagram, showing contents of a storage node and contents of one of the non-volatile solid state storage units.

FIG. 2D shows a storage server environment, which uses embodiments of the storage nodes and storage units of some previous figures in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2E is a blade hardware block diagram, showing a control plane, compute and storage planes, and authorities interacting with underlying physical resources.

FIG. 2F depicts elasticity software layers in blades of a storage cluster.

FIG. 2G depicts authorities and storage resources in blades of a storage cluster.

FIG. 3A sets forth a diagram of a storage system that is coupled for data communications with a cloud services provider in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3B sets forth a diagram of a storage system.

FIG. 3C sets forth an example of a cloud-based storage system.

FIG. 3D illustrates an exemplary computing device that may be specifically configured to perform one or more of the processes described herein.

FIG. 3E illustrates an example of a fleet of storage systems for providing storage services (also referred to herein as ‘data services’).

FIG. 3F sets forth a diagram of multiple storage systems in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 sets forth a block diagram of one embodiment of a storage system.

FIG. 5 sets forth a block diagram of another embodiment of a storage system in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 sets forth a block diagram of one embodiment of a distributed system in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 sets forth a block diagram of a distributed system of storage devices in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 8 sets forth a flowchart of an example method for unifying a group of storage devices in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9 sets forth an example flowchart of a method for decrypting data in a storage system using a secret sharing scheme.

FIG. 10 sets forth a block diagram of an example system for the generation of an encrypted key and a share in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 11 sets forth a flow chart illustrating an example method of quorum-aware secret sharing according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Example methods, apparatus, and products for data protection in a storage system in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure are described with reference to the accompanying drawings, beginning with FIG. 1A. FIG. 1A illustrates an example system for data storage, in accordance with some implementations. System 100 (also referred to as “storage system” herein) includes numerous elements for purposes of illustration rather than limitation. It may be noted that system 100 may include the same, more, or fewer elements configured in the same or different manner in other implementations.

System 100 includes a number of computing devices 164A-B. Computing devices (also referred to as “client devices” herein) may be embodied, for example, a server in a data center, a workstation, a personal computer, a notebook, or the like. Computing devices 164A-B may be coupled for data communications to one or more storage arrays 102A-B through a storage area network (‘SAN’) 158 or a local area network (‘LAN’) 160.

The SAN 158 may be implemented with a variety of data communications fabrics, devices, and protocols. For example, the fabrics for SAN 158 may include Fibre Channel, Ethernet, Infiniband, Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface (‘SAS’), or the like. Data communications protocols for use with SAN 158 may include Advanced Technology Attachment (‘ATA’), Fibre Channel Protocol, Small Computer System Interface (‘SCSI’), Internet Small Computer System Interface (‘iSCSI’), HyperSCSI, Non-Volatile Memory Express (‘NVMe’) over Fabrics, or the like. It may be noted that SAN 158 is provided for illustration, rather than limitation. Other data communication couplings may be implemented between computing devices 164A-B and storage arrays 102A-B.

The LAN 160 may also be implemented with a variety of fabrics, devices, and protocols. For example, the fabrics for LAN 160 may include Ethernet (802.3), wireless (802.11), or the like. Data communication protocols for use in LAN 160 may include Transmission Control Protocol (‘TCP’), User Datagram Protocol (‘UDP’), Internet Protocol (‘IP’), HyperText Transfer Protocol (‘HTTP’), Wireless Access Protocol (‘WAP’), Handheld Device Transport Protocol (‘HDTP’), Session Initiation Protocol (‘SIP’), Real Time Protocol (‘RTP’), or the like. The LAN 160 may also connect to the Internet 162.

Storage arrays 102A-B may provide persistent data storage for the computing devices 164A-B. Storage array 102A may be contained in a chassis (not shown), and storage array 102B may be contained in another chassis (not shown), in some implementations. Storage array 102A and 102B may include one or more storage array controllers 110A-D (also referred to as “controller” herein). A storage array controller 110A-D may be embodied as a module of automated computing machinery comprising computer hardware, computer software, or a combination of computer hardware and software. In some implementations, the storage array controllers 110A-D may be configured to carry out various storage tasks. Storage tasks may include writing data received from the computing devices 164A-B to storage array 102A-B, erasing data from storage array 102A-B, retrieving data from storage array 102A-B and providing data to computing devices 164A-B, monitoring and reporting of storage device utilization and performance, performing redundancy operations, such as Redundant Array of Independent Drives (‘RAID’) or RAID-like data redundancy operations, compressing data, encrypting data, and so forth.

Storage array controller 110A-D may be implemented in a variety of ways, including as a Field Programmable Gate Array (‘FPGA’), a Programmable Logic Chip (‘PLC’), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (‘ASIC’), System-on-Chip (‘SOC’), or any computing device that includes discrete components such as a processing device, central processing unit, computer memory, or various adapters. Storage array controller 110A-D may include, for example, a data communications adapter configured to support communications via the SAN 158 or LAN 160. In some implementations, storage array controller 110A-D may be independently coupled to the LAN 160. In some implementations, storage array controller 110A-D may include an I/O controller or the like that couples the storage array controller 110A-D for data communications, through a midplane (not shown), to a persistent storage resource 170A-B (also referred to as a “storage resource” herein). The persistent storage resource 170A-B may include any number of storage drives 171A-F (also referred to as “storage devices” herein) and any number of non-volatile Random Access Memory (‘NVRAM’) devices (not shown).

In some implementations, the NVRAM devices of a persistent storage resource 170A-B may be configured to receive, from the storage array controller 110A-D, data to be stored in the storage drives 171A-F. In some examples, the data may originate from computing devices 164A-B. In some examples, writing data to the NVRAM device may be carried out more quickly than directly writing data to the storage drive 171A-F. In some implementations, the storage array controller 110A-D may be configured to utilize the NVRAM devices as a quickly accessible buffer for data destined to be written to the storage drives 171A-F. Latency for write requests using NVRAM devices as a buffer may be improved relative to a system in which a storage array controller 110A-D writes data directly to the storage drives 171A-F. In some implementations, the NVRAM devices may be implemented with computer memory in the form of high bandwidth, low latency RAM. The NVRAM device is referred to as “non-volatile” because the NVRAM device may receive or include a unique power source that maintains the state of the RAM after main power loss to the NVRAM device. Such a power source may be a battery, one or more capacitors, or the like. In response to a power loss, the NVRAM device may be configured to write the contents of the RAM to a persistent storage, such as the storage drives 171A-F.

In some implementations, storage drive 171A-F may refer to any device configured to record data persistently, where “persistently” or “persistent” refers as to a device's ability to maintain recorded data after loss of power. In some implementations, storage drive 171A-F may correspond to non-disk storage media. For example, the storage drive 171A-F may be one or more solid-state drives (‘SSDs’), flash memory based storage, any type of solid-state non-volatile memory, or any other type of non-mechanical storage device. In other implementations, storage drive 171A-F may include mechanical or spinning hard disk, such as hard-disk drives (‘HDD’).

In some implementations, the storage array controllers 110A-D may be configured for offloading device management responsibilities from storage drive 171A-F in storage array 102A-B. For example, storage array controllers 110A-D may manage control information that may describe the state of one or more memory blocks in the storage drives 171A-F. The control information may indicate, for example, that a particular memory block has failed and should no longer be written to, that a particular memory block contains boot code for a storage array controller 110A-D, the number of program-erase (‘P/E’) cycles that have been performed on a particular memory block, the age of data stored in a particular memory block, the type of data that is stored in a particular memory block, and so forth. In some implementations, the control information may be stored with an associated memory block as metadata. In other implementations, the control information for the storage drives 171A-F may be stored in one or more particular memory blocks of the storage drives 171A-F that are selected by the storage array controller 110A-D. The selected memory blocks may be tagged with an identifier indicating that the selected memory block contains control information. The identifier may be utilized by the storage array controllers 110A-D in conjunction with storage drives 171A-F to quickly identify the memory blocks that contain control information. For example, the storage controllers 110A-D may issue a command to locate memory blocks that contain control information. It may be noted that control information may be so large that parts of the control information may be stored in multiple locations, that the control information may be stored in multiple locations for purposes of redundancy, for example, or that the control information may otherwise be distributed across multiple memory blocks in the storage drives 171A-F.

In some implementations, storage array controllers 110A-D may offload device management responsibilities from storage drives 171A-F of storage array 102A-B by retrieving, from the storage drives 171A-F, control information describing the state of one or more memory blocks in the storage drives 171A-F. Retrieving the control information from the storage drives 171A-F may be carried out, for example, by the storage array controller 110A-D querying the storage drives 171A-F for the location of control information for a particular storage drive 171A-F. The storage drives 171A-F may be configured to execute instructions that enable the storage drives 171A-F to identify the location of the control information. The instructions may be executed by a controller (not shown) associated with or otherwise located on the storage drive 171A-F and may cause the storage drive 171A-F to scan a portion of each memory block to identify the memory blocks that store control information for the storage drives 171A-F. The storage drives 171A-F may respond by sending a response message to the storage array controller 110A-D that includes the location of control information for the storage drive 171A-F. Responsive to receiving the response message, storage array controllers 110A-D may issue a request to read data stored at the address associated with the location of control information for the storage drives 171A-F.

In other implementations, the storage array controllers 110A-D may further offload device management responsibilities from storage drives 171A-F by performing, in response to receiving the control information, a storage drive management operation. A storage drive management operation may include, for example, an operation that is typically performed by the storage drive 171A-F (e.g., the controller (not shown) associated with a particular storage drive 171A-F). A storage drive management operation may include, for example, ensuring that data is not written to failed memory blocks within the storage drive 171A-F, ensuring that data is written to memory blocks within the storage drive 171A-F in such a way that adequate wear leveling is achieved, and so forth.

In some implementations, storage array 102A-B may implement two or more storage array controllers 110A-D. For example, storage array 102A may include storage array controllers 110A and storage array controllers 110B. At a given instant, a single storage array controller 110A-D (e.g., storage array controller 110A) of a storage system 100 may be designated with primary status (also referred to as “primary controller” herein), and other storage array controllers 110A-D (e.g., storage array controller 110A) may be designated with secondary status (also referred to as “secondary controller” herein). The primary controller may have particular rights, such as permission to alter data in persistent storage resource 170A-B (e.g., writing data to persistent storage resource 170A-B). At least some of the rights of the primary controller may supersede the rights of the secondary controller. For instance, the secondary controller may not have permission to alter data in persistent storage resource 170A-B when the primary controller has the right. The status of storage array controllers 110A-D may change. For example, storage array controller 110A may be designated with secondary status, and storage array controller 110B may be designated with primary status.

In some implementations, a primary controller, such as storage array controller 110A, may serve as the primary controller for one or more storage arrays 102A-B, and a second controller, such as storage array controller 110B, may serve as the secondary controller for the one or more storage arrays 102A-B. For example, storage array controller 110A may be the primary controller for storage array 102A and storage array 102B, and storage array controller 110B may be the secondary controller for storage array 102A and 102B. In some implementations, storage array controllers 110C and 110D (also referred to as “storage processing modules”) may neither have primary or secondary status. Storage array controllers 110C and 110D, implemented as storage processing modules, may act as a communication interface between the primary and secondary controllers (e.g., storage array controllers 110A and 110B, respectively) and storage array 102B. For example, storage array controller 110A of storage array 102A may send a write request, via SAN 158, to storage array 102B. The write request may be received by both storage array controllers 110C and 110D of storage array 102B. Storage array controllers 110C and 110D facilitate the communication, e.g., send the write request to the appropriate storage drive 171A-F. It may be noted that in some implementations storage processing modules may be used to increase the number of storage drives controlled by the primary and secondary controllers.

In some implementations, storage array controllers 110A-D are communicatively coupled, via a midplane (not shown), to one or more storage drives 171A-F and to one or more NVRAM devices (not shown) that are included as part of a storage array 102A-B. The storage array controllers 110A-D may be coupled to the midplane via one or more data communication links and the midplane may be coupled to the storage drives 171A-F and the NVRAM devices via one or more data communications links. The data communications links described herein are collectively illustrated by data communications links 108A-D and may include a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (‘PCIe’) bus, for example.

FIG. 1B illustrates an example system for data storage, in accordance with some implementations. Storage array controller 101 illustrated in FIG. 1B may be similar to the storage array controllers 110A-D described with respect to FIG. 1A. In one example, storage array controller 101 may be similar to storage array controller 110A or storage array controller 110B. Storage array controller 101 includes numerous elements for purposes of illustration rather than limitation. It may be noted that storage array controller 101 may include the same, more, or fewer elements configured in the same or different manner in other implementations. It may be noted that elements of FIG. 1A may be included below to help illustrate features of storage array controller 101.

Storage array controller 101 may include one or more processing devices 104 and random access memory (‘RAM’) 111. Processing device 104 (or controller 101) represents one or more general-purpose processing devices such as a microprocessor, central processing unit, or the like. More particularly, the processing device 104 (or controller 101) may be a complex instruction set computing (‘CISC’) microprocessor, reduced instruction set computing (‘RISC’) microprocessor, very long instruction word (‘VLIW’) microprocessor, or a processor implementing other instruction sets or processors implementing a combination of instruction sets. The processing device 104 (or controller 101) may also be one or more special-purpose processing devices such as an ASIC, an FPGA, a digital signal processor (‘DSP’), network processor, or the like.

The processing device 104 may be connected to the RAM 111 via a data communications link 106, which may be embodied as a high speed memory bus such as a Double-Data Rate 4 (‘DDR4’) bus. Stored in RAM 111 is an operating system 112. In some implementations, instructions 113 are stored in RAM 111. Instructions 113 may include computer program instructions for performing operations in a direct-mapped flash storage system. In one embodiment, a direct-mapped flash storage system is one that addresses data blocks within flash drives directly and without an address translation performed by the storage controllers of the flash drives.

In some implementations, storage array controller 101 includes one or more host bus adapters 103A-C that are coupled to the processing device 104 via a data communications link 105A-C. In some implementations, host bus adapters 103A-C may be computer hardware that connects a host system (e.g., the storage array controller) to other network and storage arrays. In some examples, host bus adapters 103A-C may be a Fibre Channel adapter that enables the storage array controller 101 to connect to a SAN, an Ethernet adapter that enables the storage array controller 101 to connect to a LAN, or the like. Host bus adapters 103A-C may be coupled to the processing device 104 via a data communications link 105A-C such as, for example, a PCIe bus.

In some implementations, storage array controller 101 may include a host bus adapter 114 that is coupled to an expander 115. The expander 115 may be used to attach a host system to a larger number of storage drives. The expander 115 may, for example, be a SAS expander utilized to enable the host bus adapter 114 to attach to storage drives in an implementation where the host bus adapter 114 is embodied as a SAS controller.

In some implementations, storage array controller 101 may include a switch 116 coupled to the processing device 104 via a data communications link 109. The switch 116 may be a computer hardware device that can create multiple endpoints out of a single endpoint, thereby enabling multiple devices to share a single endpoint. The switch 116 may, for example, be a PCIe switch that is coupled to a PCIe bus (e.g., data communications link 109) and presents multiple PCIe connection points to the midplane.

In some implementations, storage array controller 101 includes a data communications link 107 for coupling the storage array controller 101 to other storage array controllers. In some examples, data communications link 107 may be a QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) interconnect.

A traditional storage system that uses traditional flash drives may implement a process across the flash drives that are part of the traditional storage system. For example, a higher level process of the storage system may initiate and control a process across the flash drives. However, a flash drive of the traditional storage system may include its own storage controller that also performs the process. Thus, for the traditional storage system, a higher level process (e.g., initiated by the storage system) and a lower level process (e.g., initiated by a storage controller of the storage system) may both be performed.

To resolve various deficiencies of a traditional storage system, operations may be performed by higher level processes and not by the lower level processes. For example, the flash storage system may include flash drives that do not include storage controllers that provide the process. Thus, the operating system of the flash storage system itself may initiate and control the process. This may be accomplished by a direct-mapped flash storage system that addresses data blocks within the flash drives directly and without an address translation performed by the storage controllers of the flash drives.

In some implementations, storage drive 171A-F may be one or more zoned storage devices. In some implementations, the one or more zoned storage devices may be a shingled HDD. In some implementations, the one or more storage devices may be a flash-based SSD. In a zoned storage device, a zoned namespace on the zoned storage device can be addressed by groups of blocks that are grouped and aligned by a natural size, forming a number of addressable zones. In some implementations utilizing an SSD, the natural size may be based on the erase block size of the SSD. In some implementations, the zones of the zoned storage device may be defined during initialization of the zoned storage device. In some implementations, the zones may be defined dynamically as data is written to the zoned storage device.

In some implementations, zones may be heterogeneous, with some zones each being a page group and other zones being multiple page groups. In some implementations, some zones may correspond to an erase block and other zones may correspond to multiple erase blocks. In an implementation, zones may be any combination of differing numbers of pages in page groups and/or erase blocks, for heterogeneous mixes of programming modes, manufacturers, product types and/or product generations of storage devices, as applied to heterogeneous assemblies, upgrades, distributed storages, etc. In some implementations, zones may be defined as having usage characteristics, such as a property of supporting data with particular kinds of longevity (very short lived or very long lived, for example). These properties could be used by a zoned storage device to determine how the zone will be managed over the zone's expected lifetime.

It should be appreciated that a zone is a virtual construct. Any particular zone may not have a fixed location at a storage device. Until allocated, a zone may not have any location at a storage device. A zone may correspond to a number representing a chunk of virtually allocatable space that is the size of an erase block or other block size in various implementations. When the system allocates or opens a zone, zones get allocated to flash or other solid-state storage memory and, as the system writes to the zone, pages are written to that mapped flash or other solid-state storage memory of the zoned storage device. When the system closes the zone, the associated erase block(s) or other sized block(s) are completed. At some point in the future, the system may delete a zone which will free up the zone's allocated space. During its lifetime, a zone may be moved around to different locations of the zoned storage device, e.g., as the zoned storage device does internal maintenance.

In some implementations, the zones of the zoned storage device may be in different states. A zone may be in an empty state in which data has not been stored at the zone. An empty zone may be opened explicitly, or implicitly by writing data to the zone. This is the initial state for zones on a fresh zoned storage device, but may also be the result of a zone reset. In some implementations, an empty zone may have a designated location within the flash memory of the zoned storage device. In an implementation, the location of the empty zone may be chosen when the zone is first opened or first written to (or later if writes are buffered into memory). A zone may be in an open state either implicitly or explicitly, where a zone that is in an open state may be written to store data with write or append commands. In an implementation, a zone that is in an open state may also be written to using a copy command that copies data from a different zone. In some implementations, a zoned storage device may have a limit on the number of open zones at a particular time.

A zone in a closed state is a zone that has been partially written to, but has entered a closed state after issuing an explicit close operation. A zone in a closed state may be left available for future writes, but may reduce some of the run-time overhead consumed by keeping the zone in an open state. In some implementations, a zoned storage device may have a limit on the number of closed zones at a particular time. A zone in a full state is a zone that is storing data and can no longer be written to. A zone may be in a full state either after writes have written data to the entirety of the zone or as a result of a zone finish operation. Prior to a finish operation, a zone may or may not have been completely written. After a finish operation, however, the zone may not be opened a written to further without first performing a zone reset operation.

The mapping from a zone to an erase block (or to a shingled track in an HDD) may be arbitrary, dynamic, and hidden from view. The process of opening a zone may be an operation that allows a new zone to be dynamically mapped to underlying storage of the zoned storage device, and then allows data to be written through appending writes into the zone until the zone reaches capacity. The zone can be finished at any point, after which further data may not be written into the zone. When the data stored at the zone is no longer needed, the zone can be reset which effectively deletes the zone's content from the zoned storage device, making the physical storage held by that zone available for the subsequent storage of data. Once a zone has been written and finished, the zoned storage device ensures that the data stored at the zone is not lost until the zone is reset. In the time between writing the data to the zone and the resetting of the zone, the zone may be moved around between shingle tracks or erase blocks as part of maintenance operations within the zoned storage device, such as by copying data to keep the data refreshed or to handle memory cell aging in an SSD.

In some implementations utilizing an HDD, the resetting of the zone may allow the shingle tracks to be allocated to a new, opened zone that may be opened at some point in the future. In some implementations utilizing an SSD, the resetting of the zone may cause the associated physical erase block(s) of the zone to be erased and subsequently reused for the storage of data. In some implementations, the zoned storage device may have a limit on the number of open zones at a point in time to reduce the amount of overhead dedicated to keeping zones open.

The operating system of the flash storage system may identify and maintain a list of allocation units across multiple flash drives of the flash storage system. The allocation units may be entire erase blocks or multiple erase blocks. The operating system may maintain a map or address range that directly maps addresses to erase blocks of the flash drives of the flash storage system.

Direct mapping to the erase blocks of the flash drives may be used to rewrite data and erase data. For example, the operations may be performed on one or more allocation units that include a first data and a second data where the first data is to be retained and the second data is no longer being used by the flash storage system. The operating system may initiate the process to write the first data to new locations within other allocation units and erasing the second data and marking the allocation units as being available for use for subsequent data. Thus, the process may only be performed by the higher level operating system of the flash storage system without an additional lower level process being performed by controllers of the flash drives.

Advantages of the process being performed only by the operating system of the flash storage system include increased reliability of the flash drives of the flash storage system as unnecessary or redundant write operations are not being performed during the process. One possible point of novelty here is the concept of initiating and controlling the process at the operating system of the flash storage system. In addition, the process can be controlled by the operating system across multiple flash drives. This is in contrast to the process being performed by a storage controller of a flash drive.

A storage system can consist of two storage array controllers that share a set of drives for failover purposes, or it could consist of a single storage array controller that provides a storage service that utilizes multiple drives, or it could consist of a distributed network of storage array controllers each with some number of drives or some amount of Flash storage where the storage array controllers in the network collaborate to provide a complete storage service and collaborate on various aspects of a storage service including storage allocation and garbage collection.

FIG. 1C illustrates a third example system 117 for data storage in accordance with some implementations. System 117 (also referred to as “storage system” herein) includes numerous elements for purposes of illustration rather than limitation. It may be noted that system 117 may include the same, more, or fewer elements configured in the same or different manner in other implementations.

In one embodiment, system 117 includes a dual Peripheral Component Interconnect (‘PCI’) flash storage device 118 with separately addressable fast write storage. System 117 may include a storage device controller 119. In one embodiment, storage device controller 119A-D may be a CPU, ASIC, FPGA, or any other circuitry that may implement control structures necessary according to the present disclosure. In one embodiment, system 117 includes flash memory devices (e.g., including flash memory devices 120 a-n), operatively coupled to various channels of the storage device controller 119. Flash memory devices 120 a-n may be presented to the controller 119A-D as an addressable collection of Flash pages, erase blocks, and/or control elements sufficient to allow the storage device controller 119A-D to program and retrieve various aspects of the Flash. In one embodiment, storage device controller 119A-D may perform operations on flash memory devices 120 a-n including storing and retrieving data content of pages, arranging and erasing any blocks, tracking statistics related to the use and reuse of Flash memory pages, erase blocks, and cells, tracking and predicting error codes and faults within the Flash memory, controlling voltage levels associated with programming and retrieving contents of Flash cells, etc.

In one embodiment, system 117 may include RAM 121 to store separately addressable fast-write data. In one embodiment, RAM 121 may be one or more separate discrete devices. In another embodiment, RAM 121 may be integrated into storage device controller 119A-D or multiple storage device controllers. The RAM 121 may be utilized for other purposes as well, such as temporary program memory for a processing device (e.g., a CPU) in the storage device controller 119.

In one embodiment, system 117 may include a stored energy device 122, such as a rechargeable battery or a capacitor. Stored energy device 122 may store energy sufficient to power the storage device controller 119, some amount of the RAM (e.g., RAM 121), and some amount of Flash memory (e.g., Flash memory 120 a-120 n) for sufficient time to write the contents of RAM to Flash memory. In one embodiment, storage device controller 119A-D may write the contents of RAM to Flash Memory if the storage device controller detects loss of external power.

In one embodiment, system 117 includes two data communications links 123 a, 123 b. In one embodiment, data communications links 123 a, 123 b may be PCI interfaces. In another embodiment, data communications links 123 a, 123 b may be based on other communications standards (e.g., HyperTransport, InfiniB and, etc.). Data communications links 123 a, 123 b may be based on non-volatile memory express (‘NVMe’) or NVMe over fabrics (‘NVMf’) specifications that allow external connection to the storage device controller 119A-D from other components in the storage system 117. It should be noted that data communications links may be interchangeably referred to herein as PCI buses for convenience.

System 117 may also include an external power source (not shown), which may be provided over one or both data communications links 123 a, 123 b, or which may be provided separately. An alternative embodiment includes a separate Flash memory (not shown) dedicated for use in storing the content of RAM 121. The storage device controller 119A-D may present a logical device over a PCI bus which may include an addressable fast-write logical device, or a distinct part of the logical address space of the storage device 118, which may be presented as PCI memory or as persistent storage. In one embodiment, operations to store into the device are directed into the RAM 121. On power failure, the storage device controller 119A-D may write stored content associated with the addressable fast-write logical storage to Flash memory (e.g., Flash memory 120 a-n) for long-term persistent storage.

In one embodiment, the logical device may include some presentation of some or all of the content of the Flash memory devices 120 a-n, where that presentation allows a storage system including a storage device 118 (e.g., storage system 117) to directly address Flash memory pages and directly reprogram erase blocks from storage system components that are external to the storage device through the PCI bus. The presentation may also allow one or more of the external components to control and retrieve other aspects of the Flash memory including some or all of: tracking statistics related to use and reuse of Flash memory pages, erase blocks, and cells across all the Flash memory devices; tracking and predicting error codes and faults within and across the Flash memory devices; controlling voltage levels associated with programming and retrieving contents of Flash cells; etc.

In one embodiment, the stored energy device 122 may be sufficient to ensure completion of in-progress operations to the Flash memory devices 120 a-120 n stored energy device 122 may power storage device controller 119A-D and associated Flash memory devices (e.g., 120 a-n) for those operations, as well as for the storing of fast-write RAM to Flash memory. Stored energy device 122 may be used to store accumulated statistics and other parameters kept and tracked by the Flash memory devices 120 a-n and/or the storage device controller 119. Separate capacitors or stored energy devices (such as smaller capacitors near or embedded within the Flash memory devices themselves) may be used for some or all of the operations described herein.

Various schemes may be used to track and optimize the life span of the stored energy component, such as adjusting voltage levels over time, partially discharging the stored energy device 122 to measure corresponding discharge characteristics, etc. If the available energy decreases over time, the effective available capacity of the addressable fast-write storage may be decreased to ensure that it can be written safely based on the currently available stored energy.

FIG. 1D illustrates a third example storage system 124 for data storage in accordance with some implementations. In one embodiment, storage system 124 includes storage controllers 125 a, 125 b. In one embodiment, storage controllers 125 a, 125 b are operatively coupled to Dual PCI storage devices. Storage controllers 125 a, 125 b may be operatively coupled (e.g., via a storage network 130) to some number of host computers 127 a-n.

In one embodiment, two storage controllers (e.g., 125 a and 125 b) provide storage services, such as a SCS block storage array, a file server, an object server, a database or data analytics service, etc. The storage controllers 125 a, 125 b may provide services through some number of network interfaces (e.g., 126 a-d) to host computers 127 a-n outside of the storage system 124. Storage controllers 125 a, 125 b may provide integrated services or an application entirely within the storage system 124, forming a converged storage and compute system. The storage controllers 125 a, 125 b may utilize the fast write memory within or across storage devices 119 a-d to journal in progress operations to ensure the operations are not lost on a power failure, storage controller removal, storage controller or storage system shutdown, or some fault of one or more software or hardware components within the storage system 124.

In one embodiment, storage controllers 125 a, 125 b operate as PCI masters to one or the other PCI buses 128 a, 128 b. In another embodiment, 128 a and 128 b may be based on other communications standards (e.g., HyperTransport, InfiniBand, etc.). Other storage system embodiments may operate storage controllers 125 a, 125 b as multi-masters for both PCI buses 128 a, 128 b. Alternately, a PCI/NVMe/NVMf switching infrastructure or fabric may connect multiple storage controllers. Some storage system embodiments may allow storage devices to communicate with each other directly rather than communicating only with storage controllers. In one embodiment, a storage device controller 119 a may be operable under direction from a storage controller 125 a to synthesize and transfer data to be stored into Flash memory devices from data that has been stored in RAM (e.g., RAM 121 of FIG. 1C). For example, a recalculated version of RAM content may be transferred after a storage controller has determined that an operation has fully committed across the storage system, or when fast-write memory on the device has reached a certain used capacity, or after a certain amount of time, to ensure improve safety of the data or to release addressable fast-write capacity for reuse. This mechanism may be used, for example, to avoid a second transfer over a bus (e.g., 128 a, 128 b) from the storage controllers 125 a, 125 b. In one embodiment, a recalculation may include compressing data, attaching indexing or other metadata, combining multiple data segments together, performing erasure code calculations, etc.

In one embodiment, under direction from a storage controller 125 a, 125 b, a storage device controller 119 a, 119 b may be operable to calculate and transfer data to other storage devices from data stored in RAM (e.g., RAM 121 of FIG. 1C) without involvement of the storage controllers 125 a, 125 b. This operation may be used to mirror data stored in one storage controller 125 a to another storage controller 125 b, or it could be used to offload compression, data aggregation, and/or erasure coding calculations and transfers to storage devices to reduce load on storage controllers or the storage controller interface 129 a, 129 b to the PCI bus 128 a, 128 b.

A storage device controller 119A-D may include mechanisms for implementing high availability primitives for use by other parts of a storage system external to the Dual PCI storage device 118. For example, reservation or exclusion primitives may be provided so that, in a storage system with two storage controllers providing a highly available storage service, one storage controller may prevent the other storage controller from accessing or continuing to access the storage device. This could be used, for example, in cases where one controller detects that the other controller is not functioning properly or where the interconnect between the two storage controllers may itself not be functioning properly.

In one embodiment, a storage system for use with Dual PCI direct mapped storage devices with separately addressable fast write storage includes systems that manage erase blocks or groups of erase blocks as allocation units for storing data on behalf of the storage service, or for storing metadata (e.g., indexes, logs, etc.) associated with the storage service, or for proper management of the storage system itself. Flash pages, which may be a few kilobytes in size, may be written as data arrives or as the storage system is to persist data for long intervals of time (e.g., above a defined threshold of time). To commit data more quickly, or to reduce the number of writes to the Flash memory devices, the storage controllers may first write data into the separately addressable fast write storage on one or more storage devices.

In one embodiment, the storage controllers 125 a, 125 b may initiate the use of erase blocks within and across storage devices (e.g., 118) in accordance with an age and expected remaining lifespan of the storage devices, or based on other statistics. The storage controllers 125 a, 125 b may initiate garbage collection and data migration data between storage devices in accordance with pages that are no longer needed as well as to manage Flash page and erase block lifespans and to manage overall system performance.

In one embodiment, the storage system 124 may utilize mirroring and/or erasure coding schemes as part of storing data into addressable fast write storage and/or as part of writing data into allocation units associated with erase blocks. Erasure codes may be used across storage devices, as well as within erase blocks or allocation units, or within and across Flash memory devices on a single storage device, to provide redundancy against single or multiple storage device failures or to protect against internal corruptions of Flash memory pages resulting from Flash memory operations or from degradation of Flash memory cells. Mirroring and erasure coding at various levels may be used to recover from multiple types of failures that occur separately or in combination.

The embodiments depicted with reference to FIGS. 2A-G illustrate a storage cluster that stores user data, such as user data originating from one or more user or client systems or other sources external to the storage cluster. The storage cluster distributes user data across storage nodes housed within a chassis, or across multiple chassis, using erasure coding and redundant copies of metadata. Erasure coding refers to a method of data protection or reconstruction in which data is stored across a set of different locations, such as disks, storage nodes or geographic locations. Flash memory is one type of solid-state memory that may be integrated with the embodiments, although the embodiments may be extended to other types of solid-state memory or other storage medium, including non-solid state memory. Control of storage locations and workloads are distributed across the storage locations in a clustered peer-to-peer system. Tasks such as mediating communications between the various storage nodes, detecting when a storage node has become unavailable, and balancing I/Os (inputs and outputs) across the various storage nodes, are all handled on a distributed basis. Data is laid out or distributed across multiple storage nodes in data fragments or stripes that support data recovery in some embodiments. Ownership of data can be reassigned within a cluster, independent of input and output patterns. This architecture described in more detail below allows a storage node in the cluster to fail, with the system remaining operational, since the data can be reconstructed from other storage nodes and thus remain available for input and output operations. In various embodiments, a storage node may be referred to as a cluster node, a blade, or a server.

The storage cluster may be contained within a chassis, i.e., an enclosure housing one or more storage nodes. A mechanism to provide power to each storage node, such as a power distribution bus, and a communication mechanism, such as a communication bus that enables communication between the storage nodes are included within the chassis. The storage cluster can run as an independent system in one location according to some embodiments. In one embodiment, a chassis contains at least two instances of both the power distribution and the communication bus which may be enabled or disabled independently. The internal communication bus may be an Ethernet bus, however, other technologies such as PCIe, InfiniBand, and others, are equally suitable. The chassis provides a port for an external communication bus for enabling communication between multiple chassis, directly or through a switch, and with client systems. The external communication may use a technology such as Ethernet, InfiniBand, Fibre Channel, etc. In some embodiments, the external communication bus uses different communication bus technologies for inter-chassis and client communication. If a switch is deployed within or between chassis, the switch may act as a translation between multiple protocols or technologies. When multiple chassis are connected to define a storage cluster, the storage cluster may be accessed by a client using either proprietary interfaces or standard interfaces such as network file system (‘NFS’), common internet file system (‘CIFS’), small computer system interface (‘SCSI’) or hypertext transfer protocol (‘HTTP’). Translation from the client protocol may occur at the switch, chassis external communication bus or within each storage node. In some embodiments, multiple chassis may be coupled or connected to each other through an aggregator switch. A portion and/or all of the coupled or connected chassis may be designated as a storage cluster. As discussed above, each chassis can have multiple blades, each blade has a media access control (‘MAC’) address, but the storage cluster is presented to an external network as having a single cluster IP address and a single MAC address in some embodiments.

Each storage node may be one or more storage servers and each storage server is connected to one or more non-volatile solid state memory units, which may be referred to as storage units or storage devices. One embodiment includes a single storage server in each storage node and between one to eight non-volatile solid state memory units, however this one example is not meant to be limiting. The storage server may include a processor, DRAM and interfaces for the internal communication bus and power distribution for each of the power buses. Inside the storage node, the interfaces and storage unit share a communication bus, e.g., PCI Express, in some embodiments. The non-volatile solid state memory units may directly access the internal communication bus interface through a storage node communication bus, or request the storage node to access the bus interface. The non-volatile solid state memory unit contains an embedded CPU, solid state storage controller, and a quantity of solid state mass storage, e.g., between 2-32 terabytes (‘TB’) in some embodiments. An embedded volatile storage medium, such as DRAM, and an energy reserve apparatus are included in the non-volatile solid state memory unit. In some embodiments, the energy reserve apparatus is a capacitor, super-capacitor, or battery that enables transferring a subset of DRAM contents to a stable storage medium in the case of power loss. In some embodiments, the non-volatile solid state memory unit is constructed with a storage class memory, such as phase change or magnetoresistive random access memory (‘MRAM’) that substitutes for DRAM and enables a reduced power hold-up apparatus.

One of many features of the storage nodes and non-volatile solid state storage is the ability to proactively rebuild data in a storage cluster. The storage nodes and non-volatile solid state storage can determine when a storage node or non-volatile solid state storage in the storage cluster is unreachable, independent of whether there is an attempt to read data involving that storage node or non-volatile solid state storage. The storage nodes and non-volatile solid state storage then cooperate to recover and rebuild the data in at least partially new locations. This constitutes a proactive rebuild, in that the system rebuilds data without waiting until the data is needed for a read access initiated from a client system employing the storage cluster. These and further details of the storage memory and operation thereof are discussed below.

FIG. 2A is a perspective view of a storage cluster 161, with multiple storage nodes 150 and internal solid-state memory coupled to each storage node to provide network attached storage or storage area network, in accordance with some embodiments. A network attached storage, storage area network, or a storage cluster, or other storage memory, could include one or more storage clusters 161, each having one or more storage nodes 150, in a flexible and reconfigurable arrangement of both the physical components and the amount of storage memory provided thereby. The storage cluster 161 is designed to fit in a rack, and one or more racks can be set up and populated as desired for the storage memory. The storage cluster 161 has a chassis 138 having multiple slots 142. It should be appreciated that chassis 138 may be referred to as a housing, enclosure, or rack unit. In one embodiment, the chassis 138 has fourteen slots 142, although other numbers of slots are readily devised. For example, some embodiments have four slots, eight slots, sixteen slots, thirty-two slots, or other suitable number of slots. Each slot 142 can accommodate one storage node 150 in some embodiments. Chassis 138 includes flaps 148 that can be utilized to mount the chassis 138 on a rack. Fans 144 provide air circulation for cooling of the storage nodes 150 and components thereof, although other cooling components could be used, or an embodiment could be devised without cooling components. A switch fabric 146 couples storage nodes 150 within chassis 138 together and to a network for communication to the memory. In an embodiment depicted in herein, the slots 142 to the left of the switch fabric 146 and fans 144 are shown occupied by storage nodes 150, while the slots 142 to the right of the switch fabric 146 and fans 144 are empty and available for insertion of storage node 150 for illustrative purposes. This configuration is one example, and one or more storage nodes 150 could occupy the slots 142 in various further arrangements. The storage node arrangements need not be sequential or adjacent in some embodiments. Storage nodes 150 are hot pluggable, meaning that a storage node 150 can be inserted into a slot 142 in the chassis 138, or removed from a slot 142, without stopping or powering down the system. Upon insertion or removal of storage node 150 from slot 142, the system automatically reconfigures in order to recognize and adapt to the change. Reconfiguration, in some embodiments, includes restoring redundancy and/or rebalancing data or load.

Each storage node 150 can have multiple components. In the embodiment shown here, the storage node 150 includes a printed circuit board 159 populated by a CPU 156, i.e., processor, a memory 154 coupled to the CPU 156, and a non-volatile solid state storage 152 coupled to the CPU 156, although other mountings and/or components could be used in further embodiments. The memory 154 has instructions which are executed by the CPU 156 and/or data operated on by the CPU 156. As further explained below, the non-volatile solid state storage 152 includes flash or, in further embodiments, other types of solid-state memory.

Referring to FIG. 2A, storage cluster 161 is scalable, meaning that storage capacity with non-uniform storage sizes is readily added, as described above. One or more storage nodes 150 can be plugged into or removed from each chassis and the storage cluster self-configures in some embodiments. Plug-in storage nodes 150, whether installed in a chassis as delivered or later added, can have different sizes. For example, in one embodiment a storage node 150 can have any multiple of 4 TB, e.g., 8 TB, 12 TB, 16 TB, 32 TB, etc. In further embodiments, a storage node 150 could have any multiple of other storage amounts or capacities. Storage capacity of each storage node 150 is broadcast, and influences decisions of how to stripe the data. For maximum storage efficiency, an embodiment can self-configure as wide as possible in the stripe, subject to a predetermined requirement of continued operation with loss of up to one, or up to two, non-volatile solid state storage 152 units or storage nodes 150 within the chassis.

FIG. 2B is a block diagram showing a communications interconnect 173 and power distribution bus 172 coupling multiple storage nodes 150. Referring back to FIG. 2A, the communications interconnect 173 can be included in or implemented with the switch fabric 146 in some embodiments. Where multiple storage clusters 161 occupy a rack, the communications interconnect 173 can be included in or implemented with a top of rack switch, in some embodiments. As illustrated in FIG. 2B, storage cluster 161 is enclosed within a single chassis 138. External port 176 is coupled to storage nodes 150 through communications interconnect 173, while external port 174 is coupled directly to a storage node. External power port 178 is coupled to power distribution bus 172. Storage nodes 150 may include varying amounts and differing capacities of non-volatile solid state storage 152 as described with reference to FIG. 2A. In addition, one or more storage nodes 150 may be a compute only storage node as illustrated in FIG. 2B. Authorities 168 are implemented on the non-volatile solid state storage 152, for example as lists or other data structures stored in memory. In some embodiments the authorities are stored within the non-volatile solid state storage 152 and supported by software executing on a controller or other processor of the non-volatile solid state storage 152. In a further embodiment, authorities 168 are implemented on the storage nodes 150, for example as lists or other data structures stored in the memory 154 and supported by software executing on the CPU 156 of the storage node 150. Authorities 168 control how and where data is stored in the non-volatile solid state storage 152 in some embodiments. This control assists in determining which type of erasure coding scheme is applied to the data, and which storage nodes 150 have which portions of the data. Each authority 168 may be assigned to a non-volatile solid state storage 152. Each authority may control a range of inode numbers, segment numbers, or other data identifiers which are assigned to data by a file system, by the storage nodes 150, or by the non-volatile solid state storage 152, in various embodiments.

Every piece of data, and every piece of metadata, has redundancy in the system in some embodiments. In addition, every piece of data and every piece of metadata has an owner, which may be referred to as an authority. If that authority is unreachable, for example through failure of a storage node, there is a plan of succession for how to find that data or that metadata. In various embodiments, there are redundant copies of authorities 168. Authorities 168 have a relationship to storage nodes 150 and non-volatile solid state storage 152 in some embodiments. Each authority 168, covering a range of data segment numbers or other identifiers of the data, may be assigned to a specific non-volatile solid state storage 152. In some embodiments the authorities 168 for all of such ranges are distributed over the non-volatile solid state storage 152 of a storage cluster. Each storage node 150 has a network port that provides access to the non-volatile solid state storage(s) 152 of that storage node 150. Data can be stored in a segment, which is associated with a segment number and that segment number is an indirection for a configuration of a RAID (redundant array of independent disks) stripe in some embodiments. The assignment and use of the authorities 168 thus establishes an indirection to data. Indirection may be referred to as the ability to reference data indirectly, in this case via an authority 168, in accordance with some embodiments. A segment identifies a set of non-volatile solid state storage 152 and a local identifier into the set of non-volatile solid state storage 152 that may contain data. In some embodiments, the local identifier is an offset into the device and may be reused sequentially by multiple segments. In other embodiments the local identifier is unique for a specific segment and never reused. The offsets in the non-volatile solid state storage 152 are applied to locating data for writing to or reading from the non-volatile solid state storage 152 (in the form of a RAID stripe). Data is striped across multiple units of non-volatile solid state storage 152, which may include or be different from the non-volatile solid state storage 152 having the authority 168 for a particular data segment.

If there is a change in where a particular segment of data is located, e.g., during a data move or a data reconstruction, the authority 168 for that data segment should be consulted, at that non-volatile solid state storage 152 or storage node 150 having that authority 168. In order to locate a particular piece of data, embodiments calculate a hash value for a data segment or apply an inode number or a data segment number. The output of this operation points to a non-volatile solid state storage 152 having the authority 168 for that particular piece of data. In some embodiments there are two stages to this operation. The first stage maps an entity identifier (ID), e.g., a segment number, inode number, or directory number to an authority identifier. This mapping may include a calculation such as a hash or a bit mask. The second stage is mapping the authority identifier to a particular non-volatile solid state storage 152, which may be done through an explicit mapping. The operation is repeatable, so that when the calculation is performed, the result of the calculation repeatably and reliably points to a particular non-volatile solid state storage 152 having that authority 168. The operation may include the set of reachable storage nodes as input. If the set of reachable non-volatile solid state storage units changes the optimal set changes. In some embodiments, the persisted value is the current assignment (which is always true) and the calculated value is the target assignment the cluster will attempt to reconfigure towards. This calculation may be used to determine the optimal non-volatile solid state storage 152 for an authority in the presence of a set of non-volatile solid state storage 152 that are reachable and constitute the same cluster. The calculation also determines an ordered set of peer non-volatile solid state storage 152 that will also record the authority to non-volatile solid state storage mapping so that the authority may be determined even if the assigned non-volatile solid state storage is unreachable. A duplicate or substitute authority 168 may be consulted if a specific authority 168 is unavailable in some embodiments.

With reference to FIGS. 2A and 2B, two of the many tasks of the CPU 156 on a storage node 150 are to break up write data, and reassemble read data. When the system has determined that data is to be written, the authority 168 for that data is located as above. When the segment ID for data is already determined the request to write is forwarded to the non-volatile solid state storage 152 currently determined to be the host of the authority 168 determined from the segment. The host CPU 156 of the storage node 150, on which the non-volatile solid state storage 152 and corresponding authority 168 reside, then breaks up or shards the data and transmits the data out to various non-volatile solid state storage 152. The transmitted data is written as a data stripe in accordance with an erasure coding scheme. In some embodiments, data is requested to be pulled, and in other embodiments, data is pushed. In reverse, when data is read, the authority 168 for the segment ID containing the data is located as described above. The host CPU 156 of the storage node 150 on which the non-volatile solid state storage 152 and corresponding authority 168 reside requests the data from the non-volatile solid state storage and corresponding storage nodes pointed to by the authority. In some embodiments the data is read from flash storage as a data stripe. The host CPU 156 of storage node 150 then reassembles the read data, correcting any errors (if present) according to the appropriate erasure coding scheme, and forwards the reassembled data to the network. In further embodiments, some or all of these tasks can be handled in the non-volatile solid state storage 152. In some embodiments, the segment host requests the data be sent to storage node 150 by requesting pages from storage and then sending the data to the storage node making the original request.

In embodiments, authorities 168 operate to determine how operations will proceed against particular logical elements. Each of the logical elements may be operated on through a particular authority across a plurality of storage controllers of a storage system. The authorities 168 may communicate with the plurality of storage controllers so that the plurality of storage controllers collectively perform operations against those particular logical elements.

In embodiments, logical elements could be, for example, files, directories, object buckets, individual objects, delineated parts of files or objects, other forms of key-value pair databases, or tables. In embodiments, performing an operation can involve, for example, ensuring consistency, structural integrity, and/or recoverability with other operations against the same logical element, reading metadata and data associated with that logical element, determining what data should be written durably into the storage system to persist any changes for the operation, or where metadata and data can be determined to be stored across modular storage devices attached to a plurality of the storage controllers in the storage system.

In some embodiments the operations are token based transactions to efficiently communicate within a distributed system. Each transaction may be accompanied by or associated with a token, which gives permission to execute the transaction. The authorities 168 are able to maintain a pre-transaction state of the system until completion of the operation in some embodiments. The token based communication may be accomplished without a global lock across the system, and also enables restart of an operation in case of a disruption or other failure.

In some systems, for example in UNIX-style file systems, data is handled with an index node or inode, which specifies a data structure that represents an object in a file system. The object could be a file or a directory, for example. Metadata may accompany the object, as attributes such as permission data and a creation timestamp, among other attributes. A segment number could be assigned to all or a portion of such an object in a file system. In other systems, data segments are handled with a segment number assigned elsewhere. For purposes of discussion, the unit of distribution is an entity, and an entity can be a file, a directory or a segment. That is, entities are units of data or metadata stored by a storage system. Entities are grouped into sets called authorities. Each authority has an authority owner, which is a storage node that has the exclusive right to update the entities in the authority. In other words, a storage node contains the authority, and that the authority, in turn, contains entities.

A segment is a logical container of data in accordance with some embodiments. A segment is an address space between medium address space and physical flash locations, i.e., the data segment number, are in this address space. Segments may also contain meta-data, which enable data redundancy to be restored (rewritten to different flash locations or devices) without the involvement of higher level software. In one embodiment, an internal format of a segment contains client data and medium mappings to determine the position of that data. Each data segment is protected, e.g., from memory and other failures, by breaking the segment into a number of data and parity shards, where applicable. The data and parity shards are distributed, i.e., striped, across non-volatile solid state storage 152 coupled to the host CPUs 156 (See FIGS. 2E and 2G) in accordance with an erasure coding scheme. Usage of the term segments refers to the container and its place in the address space of segments in some embodiments. Usage of the term stripe refers to the same set of shards as a segment and includes how the shards are distributed along with redundancy or parity information in accordance with some embodiments.

A series of address-space transformations takes place across an entire storage system. At the top are the directory entries (file names) which link to an inode. Modes point into medium address space, where data is logically stored. Medium addresses may be mapped through a series of indirect mediums to spread the load of large files, or implement data services like deduplication or snapshots. Segment addresses are then translated into physical flash locations. Physical flash locations have an address range bounded by the amount of flash in the system in accordance with some embodiments. Medium addresses and segment addresses are logical containers, and in some embodiments use a 128 bit or larger identifier so as to be practically infinite, with a likelihood of reuse calculated as longer than the expected life of the system. Addresses from logical containers are allocated in a hierarchical fashion in some embodiments. Initially, each non-volatile solid state storage 152 unit may be assigned a range of address space. Within this assigned range, the non-volatile solid state storage 152 is able to allocate addresses without synchronization with other non-volatile solid state storage 152.

Data and metadata is stored by a set of underlying storage layouts that are optimized for varying workload patterns and storage devices. These layouts incorporate multiple redundancy schemes, compression formats and index algorithms. Some of these layouts store information about authorities and authority masters, while others store file metadata and file data. The redundancy schemes include error correction codes that tolerate corrupted bits within a single storage device (such as a NAND flash chip), erasure codes that tolerate the failure of multiple storage nodes, and replication schemes that tolerate data center or regional failures. In some embodiments, low density parity check (‘LDPC’) code is used within a single storage unit. Reed-Solomon encoding is used within a storage cluster, and mirroring is used within a storage grid in some embodiments. Metadata may be stored using an ordered log structured index (such as a Log Structured Merge Tree), and large data may not be stored in a log structured layout.

In order to maintain consistency across multiple copies of an entity, the storage nodes agree implicitly on two things through calculations: (1) the authority that contains the entity, and (2) the storage node that contains the authority. The assignment of entities to authorities can be done by pseudo randomly assigning entities to authorities, by splitting entities into ranges based upon an externally produced key, or by placing a single entity into each authority. Examples of pseudorandom schemes are linear hashing and the Replication Under Scalable Hashing (‘RUSH’) family of hashes, including Controlled Replication Under Scalable Hashing (‘CRUSH’). In some embodiments, pseudo-random assignment is utilized only for assigning authorities to nodes because the set of nodes can change. The set of authorities cannot change so any subjective function may be applied in these embodiments. Some placement schemes automatically place authorities on storage nodes, while other placement schemes rely on an explicit mapping of authorities to storage nodes. In some embodiments, a pseudorandom scheme is utilized to map from each authority to a set of candidate authority owners. A pseudorandom data distribution function related to CRUSH may assign authorities to storage nodes and create a list of where the authorities are assigned. Each storage node has a copy of the pseudorandom data distribution function, and can arrive at the same calculation for distributing, and later finding or locating an authority. Each of the pseudorandom schemes requires the reachable set of storage nodes as input in some embodiments in order to conclude the same target nodes. Once an entity has been placed in an authority, the entity may be stored on physical devices so that no expected failure will lead to unexpected data loss. In some embodiments, rebalancing algorithms attempt to store the copies of all entities within an authority in the same layout and on the same set of machines.

Examples of expected failures include device failures, stolen machines, datacenter fires, and regional disasters, such as nuclear or geological events. Different failures lead to different levels of acceptable data loss. In some embodiments, a stolen storage node impacts neither the security nor the reliability of the system, while depending on system configuration, a regional event could lead to no loss of data, a few seconds or minutes of lost updates, or even complete data loss.

In the embodiments, the placement of data for storage redundancy is independent of the placement of authorities for data consistency. In some embodiments, storage nodes that contain authorities do not contain any persistent storage. Instead, the storage nodes are connected to non-volatile solid state storage units that do not contain authorities. The communications interconnect between storage nodes and non-volatile solid state storage units consists of multiple communication technologies and has non-uniform performance and fault tolerance characteristics. In some embodiments, as mentioned above, non-volatile solid state storage units are connected to storage nodes via PCI express, storage nodes are connected together within a single chassis using Ethernet backplane, and chassis are connected together to form a storage cluster. Storage clusters are connected to clients using Ethernet or fiber channel in some embodiments. If multiple storage clusters are configured into a storage grid, the multiple storage clusters are connected using the Internet or other long-distance networking links, such as a “metro scale” link or private link that does not traverse the internet.

Authority owners have the exclusive right to modify entities, to migrate entities from one non-volatile solid state storage unit to another non-volatile solid state storage unit, and to add and remove copies of entities. This allows for maintaining the redundancy of the underlying data. When an authority owner fails, is going to be decommissioned, or is overloaded, the authority is transferred to a new storage node. Transient failures make it non-trivial to ensure that all non-faulty machines agree upon the new authority location. The ambiguity that arises due to transient failures can be achieved automatically by a consensus protocol such as Paxos, hot-warm failover schemes, via manual intervention by a remote system administrator, or by a local hardware administrator (such as by physically removing the failed machine from the cluster, or pressing a button on the failed machine). In some embodiments, a consensus protocol is used, and failover is automatic. If too many failures or replication events occur in too short a time period, the system goes into a self-preservation mode and halts replication and data movement activities until an administrator intervenes in accordance with some embodiments.

As authorities are transferred between storage nodes and authority owners update entities in their authorities, the system transfers messages between the storage nodes and non-volatile solid state storage units. With regard to persistent messages, messages that have different purposes are of different types. Depending on the type of the message, the system maintains different ordering and durability guarantees. As the persistent messages are being processed, the messages are temporarily stored in multiple durable and non-durable storage hardware technologies. In some embodiments, messages are stored in RAM, NVRAM and on NAND flash devices, and a variety of protocols are used in order to make efficient use of each storage medium. Latency-sensitive client requests may be persisted in replicated NVRAM, and then later NAND, while background rebalancing operations are persisted directly to NAND.

Persistent messages are persistently stored prior to being transmitted. This allows the system to continue to serve client requests despite failures and component replacement. Although many hardware components contain unique identifiers that are visible to system administrators, manufacturer, hardware supply chain and ongoing monitoring quality control infrastructure, applications running on top of the infrastructure address virtualize addresses. These virtualized addresses do not change over the lifetime of the storage system, regardless of component failures and replacements. This allows each component of the storage system to be replaced over time without reconfiguration or disruptions of client request processing, i.e., the system supports non-disruptive upgrades.

In some embodiments, the virtualized addresses are stored with sufficient redundancy. A continuous monitoring system correlates hardware and software status and the hardware identifiers. This allows detection and prediction of failures due to faulty components and manufacturing details. The monitoring system also enables the proactive transfer of authorities and entities away from impacted devices before failure occurs by removing the component from the critical path in some embodiments.

FIG. 2C is a multiple level block diagram, showing contents of a storage node 150 and contents of a non-volatile solid state storage 152 of the storage node 150. Data is communicated to and from the storage node 150 by a network interface controller (‘NIC’) 202 in some embodiments. Each storage node 150 has a CPU 156, and one or more non-volatile solid state storage 152, as discussed above. Moving down one level in FIG. 2C, each non-volatile solid state storage 152 has a relatively fast non-volatile solid state memory, such as nonvolatile random access memory (‘NVRAM’) 204, and flash memory 206. In some embodiments, NVRAM 204 may be a component that does not require program/erase cycles (DRAM, MRAM, PCM), and can be a memory that can support being written vastly more often than the memory is read from. Moving down another level in FIG. 2C, the NVRAM 204 is implemented in one embodiment as high speed volatile memory, such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM) 216, backed up by energy reserve 218. Energy reserve 218 provides sufficient electrical power to keep the DRAM 216 powered long enough for contents to be transferred to the flash memory 206 in the event of power failure. In some embodiments, energy reserve 218 is a capacitor, super-capacitor, battery, or other device, that supplies a suitable supply of energy sufficient to enable the transfer of the contents of DRAM 216 to a stable storage medium in the case of power loss. The flash memory 206 is implemented as multiple flash dies 222, which may be referred to as packages of flash dies 222 or an array of flash dies 222. It should be appreciated that the flash dies 222 could be packaged in any number of ways, with a single die per package, multiple dies per package (i.e., multichip packages), in hybrid packages, as bare dies on a printed circuit board or other substrate, as encapsulated dies, etc. In the embodiment shown, the non-volatile solid state storage 152 has a controller 212 or other processor, and an input output (I/O) port 210 coupled to the controller 212. I/O port 210 is coupled to the CPU 156 and/or the network interface controller 202 of the flash storage node 150. Flash input output (I/O) port 220 is coupled to the flash dies 222, and a direct memory access unit (DMA) 214 is coupled to the controller 212, the DRAM 216 and the flash dies 222. In the embodiment shown, the I/O port 210, controller 212, DMA unit 214 and flash I/O port 220 are implemented on a programmable logic device (‘PLD’) 208, e.g., an FPGA. In this embodiment, each flash die 222 has pages, organized as sixteen kB (kilobyte) pages 224, and a register 226 through which data can be written to or read from the flash die 222. In further embodiments, other types of solid-state memory are used in place of, or in addition to flash memory illustrated within flash die 222.

Storage clusters 161, in various embodiments as disclosed herein, can be contrasted with storage arrays in general. The storage nodes 150 are part of a collection that creates the storage cluster 161. Each storage node 150 owns a slice of data and computing required to provide the data. Multiple storage nodes 150 cooperate to store and retrieve the data. Storage memory or storage devices, as used in storage arrays in general, are less involved with processing and manipulating the data. Storage memory or storage devices in a storage array receive commands to read, write, or erase data. The storage memory or storage devices in a storage array are not aware of a larger system in which they are embedded, or what the data means. Storage memory or storage devices in storage arrays can include various types of storage memory, such as RAM, solid state drives, hard disk drives, etc. The non-volatile solid state storage 152 units described herein have multiple interfaces active simultaneously and serving multiple purposes. In some embodiments, some of the functionality of a storage node 150 is shifted into a storage unit 152, transforming the storage unit 152 into a combination of storage unit 152 and storage node 150. Placing computing (relative to storage data) into the storage unit 152 places this computing closer to the data itself. The various system embodiments have a hierarchy of storage node layers with different capabilities. By contrast, in a storage array, a controller owns and knows everything about all of the data that the controller manages in a shelf or storage devices. In a storage cluster 161, as described herein, multiple controllers in multiple non-volatile solid state storage 152 units and/or storage nodes 150 cooperate in various ways (e.g., for erasure coding, data sharding, metadata communication and redundancy, storage capacity expansion or contraction, data recovery, and so on).

FIG. 2D shows a storage server environment, which uses embodiments of the storage nodes 150 and storage 152 units of FIGS. 2A-C. In this version, each non-volatile solid state storage 152 unit has a processor such as controller 212 (see FIG. 2C), an FPGA, flash memory 206, and NVRAM 204 (which is super-capacitor backed DRAM 216, see FIGS. 2B and 2C) on a PCIe (peripheral component interconnect express) board in a chassis 138 (see FIG. 2A). The non-volatile solid state storage 152 unit may be implemented as a single board containing storage, and may be the largest tolerable failure domain inside the chassis. In some embodiments, up to two non-volatile solid state storage 152 units may fail and the device will continue with no data loss.

The physical storage is divided into named regions based on application usage in some embodiments. The NVRAM 204 is a contiguous block of reserved memory in the non-volatile solid state storage 152 DRAM 216, and is backed by NAND flash. NVRAM 204 is logically divided into multiple memory regions written for two as spool (e.g., spool_region). Space within the NVRAM 204 spools is managed by each authority 168 independently. Each device provides an amount of storage space to each authority 168. That authority 168 further manages lifetimes and allocations within that space. Examples of a spool include distributed transactions or notions. When the primary power to a non-volatile solid state storage 152 unit fails, onboard super-capacitors provide a short duration of power hold up. During this holdup interval, the contents of the NVRAM 204 are flushed to flash memory 206. On the next power-on, the contents of the NVRAM 204 are recovered from the flash memory 206.

As for the storage unit controller, the responsibility of the logical “controller” is distributed across each of the blades containing authorities 168. This distribution of logical control is shown in FIG. 2D as a host controller 242, mid-tier controller 244 and storage unit controller(s) 246. Management of the control plane and the storage plane are treated independently, although parts may be physically co-located on the same blade. Each authority 168 effectively serves as an independent controller. Each authority 168 provides its own data and metadata structures, its own background workers, and maintains its own lifecycle.

FIG. 2E is a blade 252 hardware block diagram, showing a control plane 254, compute and storage planes 256, 258, and authorities 168 interacting with underlying physical resources, using embodiments of the storage nodes 150 and storage units 152 of FIGS. 2A-C in the storage server environment of FIG. 2D. The control plane 254 is partitioned into a number of authorities 168 which can use the compute resources in the compute plane 256 to run on any of the blades 252. The storage plane 258 is partitioned into a set of devices, each of which provides access to flash 206 and NVRAM 204 resources. In one embodiment, the compute plane 256 may perform the operations of a storage array controller, as described herein, on one or more devices of the storage plane 258 (e.g., a storage array).

In the compute and storage planes 256, 258 of FIG. 2E, the authorities 168 interact with the underlying physical resources (i.e., devices). From the point of view of an authority 168, its resources are striped over all of the physical devices. From the point of view of a device, it provides resources to all authorities 168, irrespective of where the authorities happen to run. Each authority 168 has allocated or has been allocated one or more partitions 260 of storage memory in the storage units 152, e.g., partitions 260 in flash memory 206 and NVRAM 204. Each authority 168 uses those allocated partitions 260 that belong to it, for writing or reading user data. Authorities can be associated with differing amounts of physical storage of the system. For example, one authority 168 could have a larger number of partitions 260 or larger sized partitions 260 in one or more storage units 152 than one or more other authorities 168.

FIG. 2F depicts elasticity software layers in blades 252 of a storage cluster, in accordance with some embodiments. In the elasticity structure, elasticity software is symmetric, i.e., each blade's compute module 270 runs the three identical layers of processes depicted in FIG. 2F. Storage managers 274 execute read and write requests from other blades 252 for data and metadata stored in local storage unit 152 NVRAM 204 and flash 206. Authorities 168 fulfill client requests by issuing the necessary reads and writes to the blades 252 on whose storage units 152 the corresponding data or metadata resides. Endpoints 272 parse client connection requests received from switch fabric 146 supervisory software, relay the client connection requests to the authorities 168 responsible for fulfillment, and relay the authorities' 168 responses to clients. The symmetric three-layer structure enables the storage system's high degree of concurrency. Elasticity scales out efficiently and reliably in these embodiments. In addition, elasticity implements a unique scale-out technique that balances work evenly across all resources regardless of client access pattern, and maximizes concurrency by eliminating much of the need for inter-blade coordination that typically occurs with conventional distributed locking.

Still referring to FIG. 2F, authorities 168 running in the compute modules 270 of a blade 252 perform the internal operations required to fulfill client requests. One feature of elasticity is that authorities 168 are stateless, i.e., they cache active data and metadata in their own blades' 252 DRAMs for fast access, but the authorities store every update in their NVRAM 204 partitions on three separate blades 252 until the update has been written to flash 206. All the storage system writes to NVRAM 204 are in triplicate to partitions on three separate blades 252 in some embodiments. With triple-mirrored NVRAM 204 and persistent storage protected by parity and Reed-Solomon RAID checksums, the storage system can survive concurrent failure of two blades 252 with no loss of data, metadata, or access to either.

Because authorities 168 are stateless, they can migrate between blades 252. Each authority 168 has a unique identifier. NVRAM 204 and flash 206 partitions are associated with authorities' 168 identifiers, not with the blades 252 on which they are running in some embodiments. Thus, when an authority 168 migrates, the authority 168 continues to manage the same storage partitions from its new location. When a new blade 252 is installed in an embodiment of the storage cluster, the system automatically rebalances load by: partitioning the new blade's 252 storage for use by the system's authorities 168, migrating selected authorities 168 to the new blade 252, starting endpoints 272 on the new blade 252 and including them in the switch fabric's 146 client connection distribution algorithm.

From their new locations, migrated authorities 168 persist the contents of their NVRAM 204 partitions on flash 206, process read and write requests from other authorities 168, and fulfill the client requests that endpoints 272 direct to them. Similarly, if a blade 252 fails or is removed, the system redistributes its authorities 168 among the system's remaining blades 252. The redistributed authorities 168 continue to perform their original functions from their new locations.

FIG. 2G depicts authorities 168 and storage resources in blades 252 of a storage cluster, in accordance with some embodiments. Each authority 168 is exclusively responsible for a partition of the flash 206 and NVRAM 204 on each blade 252. The authority 168 manages the content and integrity of its partitions independently of other authorities 168. Authorities 168 compress incoming data and preserve it temporarily in their NVRAM 204 partitions, and then consolidate, RAID-protect, and persist the data in segments of the storage in their flash 206 partitions. As the authorities 168 write data to flash 206, storage managers 274 perform the necessary flash translation to optimize write performance and maximize media longevity. In the background, authorities 168 “garbage collect,” or reclaim space occupied by data that clients have made obsolete by overwriting the data. It should be appreciated that since authorities' 168 partitions are disjoint, there is no need for distributed locking to execute client and writes or to perform background functions.

The embodiments described herein may utilize various software, communication and/or networking protocols. In addition, the configuration of the hardware and/or software may be adjusted to accommodate various protocols. For example, the embodiments may utilize Active Directory, which is a database based system that provides authentication, directory, policy, and other services in a WINDOWS™ environment. In these embodiments, LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is one example application protocol for querying and modifying items in directory service providers such as Active Directory. In some embodiments, a network lock manager (‘NLM’) is utilized as a facility that works in cooperation with the Network File System (‘NFS’) to provide a System V style of advisory file and record locking over a network. The Server Message Block (‘SMB’) protocol, one version of which is also known as Common Internet File System (‘CIFS’), may be integrated with the storage systems discussed herein. SMB operates as an application-layer network protocol typically used for providing shared access to files, printers, and serial ports and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. SMB also provides an authenticated inter-process communication mechanism. AMAZON™ S3 (Simple Storage Service) is a web service offered by Amazon Web Services, and the systems described herein may interface with Amazon S3 through web services interfaces (REST (representational state transfer), SOAP (simple object access protocol), and BitTorrent). A RESTful API (application programming interface) breaks down a transaction to create a series of small modules. Each module addresses a particular underlying part of the transaction. The control or permissions provided with these embodiments, especially for object data, may include utilization of an access control list (‘ACL’). The ACL is a list of permissions attached to an object and the ACL specifies which users or system processes are granted access to objects, as well as what operations are allowed on given objects. The systems may utilize Internet Protocol version 6 (‘IPv6’), as well as IPv4, for the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. The routing of packets between networked systems may include Equal-cost multi-path routing (‘ECMP’), which is a routing strategy where next-hop packet forwarding to a single destination can occur over multiple “best paths” which tie for top place in routing metric calculations. Multi-path routing can be used in conjunction with most routing protocols, because it is a per-hop decision limited to a single router. The software may support Multi-tenancy, which is an architecture in which a single instance of a software application serves multiple customers. Each customer may be referred to as a tenant. Tenants may be given the ability to customize some parts of the application, but may not customize the application's code, in some embodiments. The embodiments may maintain audit logs. An audit log is a document that records an event in a computing system. In addition to documenting what resources were accessed, audit log entries typically include destination and source addresses, a timestamp, and user login information for compliance with various regulations. The embodiments may support various key management policies, such as encryption key rotation. In addition, the system may support dynamic root passwords or some variation dynamically changing passwords.

FIG. 3A sets forth a diagram of a storage system 306 that is coupled for data communications with a cloud services provider 302 in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure. Although depicted in less detail, the storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3A may be similar to the storage systems described above with reference to FIGS. 1A-1D and FIGS. 2A-2G. In some embodiments, the storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3A may be embodied as a storage system that includes imbalanced active/active controllers, as a storage system that includes balanced active/active controllers, as a storage system that includes active/active controllers where less than all of each controller's resources are utilized such that each controller has reserve resources that may be used to support failover, as a storage system that includes fully active/active controllers, as a storage system that includes dataset-segregated controllers, as a storage system that includes dual-layer architectures with front-end controllers and back-end integrated storage controllers, as a storage system that includes scale-out clusters of dual-controller arrays, as well as combinations of such embodiments.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3A, the storage system 306 is coupled to the cloud services provider 302 via a data communications link 304. Such a data communications link 304 may be fully wired, fully wireless, or some aggregation of wired and wireless data communications pathways. In such an example, digital information may be exchanged between the storage system 306 and the cloud services provider 302 via the data communications link 304 using one or more data communications protocols. For example, digital information may be exchanged between the storage system 306 and the cloud services provider 302 via the data communications link 304 using the handheld device transfer protocol (‘HDTP’), hypertext transfer protocol (‘HTTP’), internet protocol (‘IP’), real-time transfer protocol (‘RTP’), transmission control protocol (‘TCP’), user datagram protocol (‘UDP’), wireless application protocol (‘WAP’), or other protocol.

The cloud services provider 302 depicted in FIG. 3A may be embodied, for example, as a system and computing environment that provides a vast array of services to users of the cloud services provider 302 through the sharing of computing resources via the data communications link 304. The cloud services provider 302 may provide on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources such as computer networks, servers, storage, applications and services, and so on.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3A, the cloud services provider 302 may be configured to provide a variety of services to the storage system 306 and users of the storage system 306 through the implementation of various service models. For example, the cloud services provider 302 may be configured to provide services through the implementation of an infrastructure as a service (‘IaaS’) service model, through the implementation of a platform as a service (‘PaaS’) service model, through the implementation of a software as a service (‘SaaS’) service model, through the implementation of an authentication as a service (‘AaaS’) service model, through the implementation of a storage as a service model where the cloud services provider 302 offers access to its storage infrastructure for use by the storage system 306 and users of the storage system 306, and so on.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3A, the cloud services provider 302 may be embodied, for example, as a private cloud, as a public cloud, or as a combination of a private cloud and public cloud. In an embodiment in which the cloud services provider 302 is embodied as a private cloud, the cloud services provider 302 may be dedicated to providing services to a single organization rather than providing services to multiple organizations. In an embodiment where the cloud services provider 302 is embodied as a public cloud, the cloud services provider 302 may provide services to multiple organizations. In still alternative embodiments, the cloud services provider 302 may be embodied as a mix of a private and public cloud services with a hybrid cloud deployment.

Although not explicitly depicted in FIG. 3A, readers will appreciate that a vast amount of additional hardware components and additional software components may be necessary to facilitate the delivery of cloud services to the storage system 306 and users of the storage system 306. For example, the storage system 306 may be coupled to (or even include) a cloud storage gateway. Such a cloud storage gateway may be embodied, for example, as hardware-based or software-based appliance that is located on premise with the storage system 306. Such a cloud storage gateway may operate as a bridge between local applications that are executing on the storage system 306 and remote, cloud-based storage that is utilized by the storage system 306. Through the use of a cloud storage gateway, organizations may move primary iSCSI or NAS to the cloud services provider 302, thereby enabling the organization to save space on their on-premises storage systems. Such a cloud storage gateway may be configured to emulate a disk array, a block-based device, a file server, or other storage system that can translate the SCSI commands, file server commands, or other appropriate command into REST-space protocols that facilitate communications with the cloud services provider 302.

In order to enable the storage system 306 and users of the storage system 306 to make use of the services provided by the cloud services provider 302, a cloud migration process may take place during which data, applications, or other elements from an organization's local systems (or even from another cloud environment) are moved to the cloud services provider 302. In order to successfully migrate data, applications, or other elements to the cloud services provider's 302 environment, middleware such as a cloud migration tool may be utilized to bridge gaps between the cloud services provider's 302 environment and an organization's environment. In order to further enable the storage system 306 and users of the storage system 306 to make use of the services provided by the cloud services provider 302, a cloud orchestrator may also be used to arrange and coordinate automated tasks in pursuit of creating a consolidated process or workflow. Such a cloud orchestrator may perform tasks such as configuring various components, whether those components are cloud components or on-premises components, as well as managing the interconnections between such components.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3A, and as described briefly above, the cloud services provider 302 may be configured to provide services to the storage system 306 and users of the storage system 306 through the usage of a SaaS service model. For example, the cloud services provider 302 may be configured to provide access to data analytics applications to the storage system 306 and users of the storage system 306. Such data analytics applications may be configured, for example, to receive vast amounts of telemetry data phoned home by the storage system 306. Such telemetry data may describe various operating characteristics of the storage system 306 and may be analyzed for a vast array of purposes including, for example, to determine the health of the storage system 306, to identify workloads that are executing on the storage system 306, to predict when the storage system 306 will run out of various resources, to recommend configuration changes, hardware or software upgrades, workflow migrations, or other actions that may improve the operation of the storage system 306.

The cloud services provider 302 may also be configured to provide access to virtualized computing environments to the storage system 306 and users of the storage system 306. Examples of such virtualized environments can include virtual machines that are created to emulate an actual computer, virtualized desktop environments that separate a logical desktop from a physical machine, virtualized file systems that allow uniform access to different types of concrete file systems, and many others.

Although the example depicted in FIG. 3A illustrates the storage system 306 being coupled for data communications with the cloud services provider 302, in other embodiments the storage system 306 may be part of a hybrid cloud deployment in which private cloud elements (e.g., private cloud services, on-premises infrastructure, and so on) and public cloud elements (e.g., public cloud services, infrastructure, and so on that may be provided by one or more cloud services providers) are combined to form a single solution, with orchestration among the various platforms. Such a hybrid cloud deployment may leverage hybrid cloud management software such as, for example, Azure™ Arc from Microsoft™, that centralize the management of the hybrid cloud deployment to any infrastructure and enable the deployment of services anywhere. In such an example, the hybrid cloud management software may be configured to create, update, and delete resources (both physical and virtual) that form the hybrid cloud deployment, to allocate compute and storage to specific workloads, to monitor workloads and resources for performance, policy compliance, updates and patches, security status, or to perform a variety of other tasks.

Readers will appreciate that by pairing the storage systems described herein with one or more cloud services providers, various offerings may be enabled. For example, disaster recovery as a service (‘DRaaS’) may be provided where cloud resources are utilized to protect applications and data from disruption caused by disaster, including in embodiments where the storage systems may serve as the primary data store. In such embodiments, a total system backup may be taken that allows for business continuity in the event of system failure. In such embodiments, cloud data backup techniques (by themselves or as part of a larger DRaaS solution) may also be integrated into an overall solution that includes the storage systems and cloud services providers described herein.

The storage systems described herein, as well as the cloud services providers, may be utilized to provide a wide array of security features. For example, the storage systems may encrypt data at rest (and data may be sent to and from the storage systems encrypted) and may make use of Key Management-as-a-Service (‘KMaaS’) to manage encryption keys, keys for locking and unlocking storage devices, and so on. Likewise, cloud data security gateways or similar mechanisms may be utilized to ensure that data stored within the storage systems does not improperly end up being stored in the cloud as part of a cloud data backup operation. Furthermore, microsegmentation or identity-based-segmentation may be utilized in a data center that includes the storage systems or within the cloud services provider, to create secure zones in data centers and cloud deployments that enables the isolation of workloads from one another.

For further explanation, FIG. 3B sets forth a diagram of a storage system 306 in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure. Although depicted in less detail, the storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B may be similar to the storage systems described above with reference to FIGS. 1A-1D and FIGS. 2A-2G as the storage system may include many of the components described above.

The storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B may include a vast amount of storage resources 308, which may be embodied in many forms. For example, the storage resources 308 can include nano-RAM or another form of nonvolatile random access memory that utilizes carbon nanotubes deposited on a substrate, 3D crosspoint non-volatile memory, flash memory including single-level cell (‘SLC’) NAND flash, multi-level cell (‘MLC’) NAND flash, triple-level cell (‘TLC’) NAND flash, quad-level cell (‘QLC’) NAND flash, or others. Likewise, the storage resources 308 may include non-volatile magnetoresistive random-access memory (‘MRAM’), including spin transfer torque (‘STT’) MRAM. The example storage resources 308 may alternatively include non-volatile phase-change memory (‘PCM’), quantum memory that allows for the storage and retrieval of photonic quantum information, resistive random-access memory (‘ReRAM’), storage class memory (‘SCM’), or other form of storage resources, including any combination of resources described herein. Readers will appreciate that other forms of computer memories and storage devices may be utilized by the storage systems described above, including DRAM, SRAM, EEPROM, universal memory, and many others. The storage resources 308 depicted in FIG. 3A may be embodied in a variety of form factors, including but not limited to, dual in-line memory modules (‘DIMMs’), non-volatile dual in-line memory modules (‘NVDIMMs’), M.2, U.2, and others.

The storage resources 308 depicted in FIG. 3B may include various forms of SCM. SCM may effectively treat fast, non-volatile memory (e.g., NAND flash) as an extension of DRAM such that an entire dataset may be treated as an in-memory dataset that resides entirely in DRAM. SCM may include non-volatile media such as, for example, NAND flash. Such NAND flash may be accessed utilizing NVMe that can use the PCIe bus as its transport, providing for relatively low access latencies compared to older protocols. In fact, the network protocols used for SSDs in all-flash arrays can include NVMe using Ethernet (ROCE, NVME TCP), Fibre Channel (NVMe FC), InfiniBand (iWARP), and others that make it possible to treat fast, non-volatile memory as an extension of DRAM. In view of the fact that DRAM is often byte-addressable and fast, non-volatile memory such as NAND flash is block-addressable, a controller software/hardware stack may be needed to convert the block data to the bytes that are stored in the media. Examples of media and software that may be used as SCM can include, for example, 3D XPoint, Intel Memory Drive Technology, Samsung's Z-SSD, and others.

The storage resources 308 depicted in FIG. 3B may also include racetrack memory (also referred to as domain-wall memory). Such racetrack memory may be embodied as a form of non-volatile, solid-state memory that relies on the intrinsic strength and orientation of the magnetic field created by an electron as it spins in addition to its electronic charge, in solid-state devices. Through the use of spin-coherent electric current to move magnetic domains along a nanoscopic permalloy wire, the domains may pass by magnetic read/write heads positioned near the wire as current is passed through the wire, which alter the domains to record patterns of bits. In order to create a racetrack memory device, many such wires and read/write elements may be packaged together.

The example storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B may implement a variety of storage architectures. For example, storage systems in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure may utilize block storage where data is stored in blocks, and each block essentially acts as an individual hard drive. Storage systems in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure may utilize object storage, where data is managed as objects. Each object may include the data itself, a variable amount of metadata, and a globally unique identifier, where object storage can be implemented at multiple levels (e.g., device level, system level, interface level). Storage systems in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure utilize file storage in which data is stored in a hierarchical structure. Such data may be saved in files and folders, and presented to both the system storing it and the system retrieving it in the same format.

The example storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B may be embodied as a storage system in which additional storage resources can be added through the use of a scale-up model, additional storage resources can be added through the use of a scale-out model, or through some combination thereof. In a scale-up model, additional storage may be added by adding additional storage devices. In a scale-out model, however, additional storage nodes may be added to a cluster of storage nodes, where such storage nodes can include additional processing resources, additional networking resources, and so on.

The example storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B may leverage the storage resources described above in a variety of different ways. For example, some portion of the storage resources may be utilized to serve as a write cache, storage resources within the storage system may be utilized as a read cache, or tiering may be achieved within the storage systems by placing data within the storage system in accordance with one or more tiering policies.

The storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B also includes communications resources 310 that may be useful in facilitating data communications between components within the storage system 306, as well as data communications between the storage system 306 and computing devices that are outside of the storage system 306, including embodiments where those resources are separated by a relatively vast expanse. The communications resources 310 may be configured to utilize a variety of different protocols and data communication fabrics to facilitate data communications between components within the storage systems as well as computing devices that are outside of the storage system. For example, the communications resources 310 can include fibre channel (‘FC’) technologies such as FC fabrics and FC protocols that can transport SCSI commands over FC network, FC over ethernet (‘FCoE’) technologies through which FC frames are encapsulated and transmitted over Ethernet networks, InfiniB and (‘IB’) technologies in which a switched fabric topology is utilized to facilitate transmissions between channel adapters, NVM Express (‘NVMe’) technologies and NVMe over fabrics (‘NVMeoF’) technologies through which non-volatile storage media attached via a PCI express (‘PCIe’) bus may be accessed, and others. In fact, the storage systems described above may, directly or indirectly, make use of neutrino communication technologies and devices through which information (including binary information) is transmitted using a beam of neutrinos.

The communications resources 310 can also include mechanisms for accessing storage resources 308 within the storage system 306 utilizing serial attached SCSI (‘SAS’), serial ATA (‘SATA’) bus interfaces for connecting storage resources 308 within the storage system 306 to host bus adapters within the storage system 306, internet small computer systems interface (‘iSCSI’) technologies to provide block-level access to storage resources 308 within the storage system 306, and other communications resources that may be useful in facilitating data communications between components within the storage system 306, as well as data communications between the storage system 306 and computing devices that are outside of the storage system 306.

The storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B also includes processing resources 312 that may be useful in executing computer program instructions and performing other computational tasks within the storage system 306. The processing resources 312 may include one or more ASICs that are customized for some particular purpose as well as one or more CPUs. The processing resources 312 may also include one or more DSPs, one or more FPGAs, one or more systems on a chip (‘SoCs’), or other form of processing resources 312. The storage system 306 may utilize the storage resources 312 to perform a variety of tasks including, but not limited to, supporting the execution of software resources 314 that will be described in greater detail below.

The storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B also includes software resources 314 that, when executed by processing resources 312 within the storage system 306, may perform a vast array of tasks. The software resources 314 may include, for example, one or more modules of computer program instructions that when executed by processing resources 312 within the storage system 306 are useful in carrying out various data protection techniques. Such data protection techniques may be carried out, for example, by system software executing on computer hardware within the storage system, by a cloud services provider, or in other ways. Such data protection techniques can include data archiving, data backup, data replication, data snapshotting, data and database cloning, and other data protection techniques.

The software resources 314 may also include software that is useful in implementing software-defined storage (‘SDS’). In such an example, the software resources 314 may include one or more modules of computer program instructions that, when executed, are useful in policy-based provisioning and management of data storage that is independent of the underlying hardware. Such software resources 314 may be useful in implementing storage virtualization to separate the storage hardware from the software that manages the storage hardware.

The software resources 314 may also include software that is useful in facilitating and optimizing I/O operations that are directed to the storage system 306. For example, the software resources 314 may include software modules that perform various data reduction techniques such as, for example, data compression, data deduplication, and others. The software resources 314 may include software modules that intelligently group together I/O operations to facilitate better usage of the underlying storage resource 308, software modules that perform data migration operations to migrate from within a storage system, as well as software modules that perform other functions. Such software resources 314 may be embodied as one or more software containers or in many other ways.

For further explanation, FIG. 3C sets forth an example of a cloud-based storage system 318 in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure. In the example depicted in FIG. 3C, the cloud-based storage system 318 is created entirely in a cloud computing environment 316 such as, for example, Amazon Web Services (‘AWS’)™, Microsoft Azure™, Google Cloud Platform™, IBM Cloud™, Oracle Cloud™, and others. The cloud-based storage system 318 may be used to provide services similar to the services that may be provided by the storage systems described above.

The cloud-based storage system 318 depicted in FIG. 3C includes two cloud computing instances 320, 322 that each are used to support the execution of a storage controller application 324, 326. The cloud computing instances 320, 322 may be embodied, for example, as instances of cloud computing resources (e.g., virtual machines) that may be provided by the cloud computing environment 316 to support the execution of software applications such as the storage controller application 324, 326. For example, each of the cloud computing instances 320, 322 may execute on an Azure VM, where each Azure VM may include high speed temporary storage that may be leveraged as a cache (e.g., as a read cache). In one embodiment, the cloud computing instances 320, 322 may be embodied as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (‘EC2’) instances. In such an example, an Amazon Machine Image (‘AMI’) that includes the storage controller application 324, 326 may be booted to create and configure a virtual machine that may execute the storage controller application 324, 326.

In the example method depicted in FIG. 3C, the storage controller application 324, 326 may be embodied as a module of computer program instructions that, when executed, carries out various storage tasks. For example, the storage controller application 324, 326 may be embodied as a module of computer program instructions that, when executed, carries out the same tasks as the controllers 110A, 110B in FIG. 1A described above such as writing data to the cloud-based storage system 318, erasing data from the cloud-based storage system 318, retrieving data from the cloud-based storage system 318, monitoring and reporting of storage device utilization and performance, performing redundancy operations, such as RAID or RAID-like data redundancy operations, compressing data, encrypting data, deduplicating data, and so forth. Readers will appreciate that because there are two cloud computing instances 320, 322 that each include the storage controller application 324, 326, in some embodiments one cloud computing instance 320 may operate as the primary controller as described above while the other cloud computing instance 322 may operate as the secondary controller as described above. Readers will appreciate that the storage controller application 324, 326 depicted in FIG. 3C may include identical source code that is executed within different cloud computing instances 320, 322 such as distinct EC2 instances.

Readers will appreciate that other embodiments that do not include a primary and secondary controller are within the scope of the present disclosure. For example, each cloud computing instance 320, 322 may operate as a primary controller for some portion of the address space supported by the cloud-based storage system 318, each cloud computing instance 320, 322 may operate as a primary controller where the servicing of I/O operations directed to the cloud-based storage system 318 are divided in some other way, and so on. In fact, in other embodiments where costs savings may be prioritized over performance demands, only a single cloud computing instance may exist that contains the storage controller application.

The cloud-based storage system 318 depicted in FIG. 3C includes cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338. The cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n may be embodied, for example, as instances of cloud computing resources that may be provided by the cloud computing environment 316 to support the execution of software applications. The cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n of FIG. 3C may differ from the cloud computing instances 320, 322 described above as the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n of FIG. 3C have local storage 330, 334, 338 resources whereas the cloud computing instances 320, 322 that support the execution of the storage controller application 324, 326 need not have local storage resources. The cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 may be embodied, for example, as EC2 M5 instances that include one or more SSDs, as EC2 R5 instances that include one or more SSDs, as EC2 I3 instances that include one or more SSDs, and so on. In some embodiments, the local storage 330, 334, 338 must be embodied as solid-state storage (e.g., SSDs) rather than storage that makes use of hard disk drives.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3C, each of the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 can include a software daemon 328, 332, 336 that, when executed by a cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n can present itself to the storage controller applications 324, 326 as if the cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n were a physical storage device (e.g., one or more SSDs). In such an example, the software daemon 328, 332, 336 may include computer program instructions similar to those that would normally be contained on a storage device such that the storage controller applications 324, 326 can send and receive the same commands that a storage controller would send to storage devices. In such a way, the storage controller applications 324, 326 may include code that is identical to (or substantially identical to) the code that would be executed by the controllers in the storage systems described above. In these and similar embodiments, communications between the storage controller applications 324, 326 and the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 may utilize iSCSI, NVMe over TCP, messaging, a custom protocol, or in some other mechanism.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3C, each of the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 may also be coupled to block storage 342, 344, 346 that is offered by the cloud computing environment 316 such as, for example, as Amazon Elastic Block Store (‘EBS’) volumes. In such an example, the block storage 342, 344, 346 that is offered by the cloud computing environment 316 may be utilized in a manner that is similar to how the NVRAM devices described above are utilized, as the software daemon 328, 332, 336 (or some other module) that is executing within a particular cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n may, upon receiving a request to write data, initiate a write of the data to its attached EBS volume as well as a write of the data to its local storage 330, 334, 338 resources. In some alternative embodiments, data may only be written to the local storage 330, 334, 338 resources within a particular cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n. In an alternative embodiment, rather than using the block storage 342, 344, 346 that is offered by the cloud computing environment 316 as NVRAM, actual RAM on each of the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 may be used as NVRAM, thereby decreasing network utilization costs that would be associated with using an EBS volume as the NVRAM. In yet another embodiment, high performance block storage resources such as one or more Azure Ultra Disks may be utilized as the NVRAM.

When a request to write data is received by a particular cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338, the software daemon 328, 332, 336 may be configured to not only write the data to its own local storage 330, 334, 338 resources and any appropriate block storage 342, 344, 346 resources, but the software daemon 328, 332, 336 may also be configured to write the data to cloud-based object storage 348 that is attached to the particular cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n. The cloud-based object storage 348 that is attached to the particular cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n may be embodied, for example, as Amazon Simple Storage Service (‘S3’). In other embodiments, the cloud computing instances 320, 322 that each include the storage controller application 324, 326 may initiate the storage of the data in the local storage 330, 334, 338 of the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n and the cloud-based object storage 348. In other embodiments, rather than using both the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 (also referred to herein as ‘virtual drives’) and the cloud-based object storage 348 to store data, a persistent storage layer may be implemented in other ways. For example, one or more Azure Ultra disks may be used to persistently store data (e.g., after the data has been written to the NVRAM layer). In an embodiment where one or more Azure Ultra disks may be used to persistently store data, the usage of a cloud-based object storage 348 may be eliminated such that data is only stored persistently in the Azure Ultra disks without also writing the data to an object storage layer.

While the local storage 330, 334, 338 resources and the block storage 342, 344, 346 resources that are utilized by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n may support block-level access, the cloud-based object storage 348 that is attached to the particular cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n supports only object-based access. The software daemon 328, 332, 336 may therefore be configured to take blocks of data, package those blocks into objects, and write the objects to the cloud-based object storage 348 that is attached to the particular cloud computing instance 340 a, 340 b, 340 n.

In some embodiments, all data that is stored by the cloud-based storage system 318 may be stored in both: 1) the cloud-based object storage 348, and 2) at least one of the local storage 330, 334, 338 resources or block storage 342, 344, 346 resources that are utilized by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n. In such embodiments, the local storage 330, 334, 338 resources and block storage 342, 344, 346 resources that are utilized by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n may effectively operate as cache that generally includes all data that is also stored in S3, such that all reads of data may be serviced by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n without requiring the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n to access the cloud-based object storage 348. Readers will appreciate that in other embodiments, however, all data that is stored by the cloud-based storage system 318 may be stored in the cloud-based object storage 348, but less than all data that is stored by the cloud-based storage system 318 may be stored in at least one of the local storage 330, 334, 338 resources or block storage 342, 344, 346 resources that are utilized by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n. In such an example, various policies may be utilized to determine which subset of the data that is stored by the cloud-based storage system 318 should reside in both: 1) the cloud-based object storage 348, and 2) at least one of the local storage 330, 334, 338 resources or block storage 342, 344, 346 resources that are utilized by the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n.

One or more modules of computer program instructions that are executing within the cloud-based storage system 318 (e.g., a monitoring module that is executing on its own EC2 instance) may be designed to handle the failure of one or more of the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338. In such an example, the monitoring module may handle the failure of one or more of the cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n with local storage 330, 334, 338 by creating one or more new cloud computing instances with local storage, retrieving data that was stored on the failed cloud computing instances 340 a, 340 b, 340 n from the cloud-based object storage 348, and storing the data retrieved from the cloud-based object storage 348 in local storage on the newly created cloud computing instances. Readers will appreciate that many variants of this process may be implemented.

Readers will appreciate that various performance aspects of the cloud-based storage system 318 may be monitored (e.g., by a monitoring module that is executing in an EC2 instance) such that the cloud-based storage system 318 can be scaled-up or scaled-out as needed. For example, if the cloud computing instances 320, 322 that are used to support the execution of a storage controller application 324, 326 are undersized and not sufficiently servicing the I/O requests that are issued by users of the cloud-based storage system 318, a monitoring module may create a new, more powerful cloud computing instance (e.g., a cloud computing instance of a type that includes more processing power, more memory, etc. . . . ) that includes the storage controller application such that the new, more powerful cloud computing instance can begin operating as the primary controller. Likewise, if the monitoring module determines that the cloud computing instances 320, 322 that are used to support the execution of a storage controller application 324, 326 are oversized and that cost savings could be gained by switching to a smaller, less powerful cloud computing instance, the monitoring module may create a new, less powerful (and less expensive) cloud computing instance that includes the storage controller application such that the new, less powerful cloud computing instance can begin operating as the primary controller.

The storage systems described above may carry out intelligent data backup techniques through which data stored in the storage system may be copied and stored in a distinct location to avoid data loss in the event of equipment failure or some other form of catastrophe. For example, the storage systems described above may be configured to examine each backup to avoid restoring the storage system to an undesirable state. Consider an example in which malware infects the storage system. In such an example, the storage system may include software resources 314 that can scan each backup to identify backups that were captured before the malware infected the storage system and those backups that were captured after the malware infected the storage system. In such an example, the storage system may restore itself from a backup that does not include the malware—or at least not restore the portions of a backup that contained the malware. In such an example, the storage system may include software resources 314 that can scan each backup to identify the presences of malware (or a virus, or some other undesirable), for example, by identifying write operations that were serviced by the storage system and originated from a network subnet that is suspected to have delivered the malware, by identifying write operations that were serviced by the storage system and originated from a user that is suspected to have delivered the malware, by identifying write operations that were serviced by the storage system and examining the content of the write operation against fingerprints of the malware, and in many other ways.

Readers will further appreciate that the backups (often in the form of one or more snapshots) may also be utilized to perform rapid recovery of the storage system. Consider an example in which the storage system is infected with ransomware that locks users out of the storage system. In such an example, software resources 314 within the storage system may be configured to detect the presence of ransomware and may be further configured to restore the storage system to a point-in-time, using the retained backups, prior to the point-in-time at which the ransomware infected the storage system. In such an example, the presence of ransomware may be explicitly detected through the use of software tools utilized by the system, through the use of a key (e.g., a USB drive) that is inserted into the storage system, or in a similar way. Likewise, the presence of ransomware may be inferred in response to system activity meeting a predetermined fingerprint such as, for example, no reads or writes coming into the system for a predetermined period of time.

Readers will appreciate that the various components described above may be grouped into one or more optimized computing packages as converged infrastructures. Such converged infrastructures may include pools of computers, storage and networking resources that can be shared by multiple applications and managed in a collective manner using policy-driven processes. Such converged infrastructures may be implemented with a converged infrastructure reference architecture, with standalone appliances, with a software driven hyper-converged approach (e.g., hyper-converged infrastructures), or in other ways.

Readers will appreciate that the storage systems described in this disclosure may be useful for supporting various types of software applications. In fact, the storage systems may be ‘application aware’ in the sense that the storage systems may obtain, maintain, or otherwise have access to information describing connected applications (e.g., applications that utilize the storage systems) to optimize the operation of the storage system based on intelligence about the applications and their utilization patterns. For example, the storage system may optimize data layouts, optimize caching behaviors, optimize ‘QoS’ levels, or perform some other optimization that is designed to improve the storage performance that is experienced by the application.

As an example of one type of application that may be supported by the storage systems described herein, the storage system 306 may be useful in supporting artificial intelligence (‘AI’) applications, database applications, XOps projects (e.g., DevOps projects, DataOps projects, MLOps projects, ModelOps projects, PlatformOps projects), electronic design automation tools, event-driven software applications, high performance computing applications, simulation applications, high-speed data capture and analysis applications, machine learning applications, media production applications, media serving applications, picture archiving and communication systems (‘PACS’) applications, software development applications, virtual reality applications, augmented reality applications, and many other types of applications by providing storage resources to such applications.

In view of the fact that the storage systems include compute resources, storage resources, and a wide variety of other resources, the storage systems may be well suited to support applications that are resource intensive such as, for example, AI applications. AI applications may be deployed in a variety of fields, including: predictive maintenance in manufacturing and related fields, healthcare applications such as patient data & risk analytics, retail and marketing deployments (e.g., search advertising, social media advertising), supply chains solutions, fintech solutions such as business analytics & reporting tools, operational deployments such as real-time analytics tools, application performance management tools, IT infrastructure management tools, and many others.

Such AI applications may enable devices to perceive their environment and take actions that maximize their chance of success at some goal. Examples of such AI applications can include IBM Watson™, Microsoft Oxford™, Google DeepMind™, Baidu Minwa™, and others.

The storage systems described above may also be well suited to support other types of applications that are resource intensive such as, for example, machine learning applications. Machine learning applications may perform various types of data analysis to automate analytical model building. Using algorithms that iteratively learn from data, machine learning applications can enable computers to learn without being explicitly programmed. One particular area of machine learning is referred to as reinforcement learning, which involves taking suitable actions to maximize reward in a particular situation.

In addition to the resources already described, the storage systems described above may also include graphics processing units (‘GPUs’), occasionally referred to as visual processing unit (‘VPUs’). Such GPUs may be embodied as specialized electronic circuits that rapidly manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. Such GPUs may be included within any of the computing devices that are part of the storage systems described above, including as one of many individually scalable components of a storage system, where other examples of individually scalable components of such storage system can include storage components, memory components, compute components (e.g., CPUs, FPGAs, ASICs), networking components, software components, and others. In addition to GPUs, the storage systems described above may also include neural network processors (‘NNPs’) for use in various aspects of neural network processing. Such NNPs may be used in place of (or in addition to) GPUs and may also be independently scalable.

As described above, the storage systems described herein may be configured to support artificial intelligence applications, machine learning applications, big data analytics applications, and many other types of applications. The rapid growth in these sort of applications is being driven by three technologies: deep learning (DL), GPU processors, and Big Data. Deep learning is a computing model that makes use of massively parallel neural networks inspired by the human brain. Instead of experts handcrafting software, a deep learning model writes its own software by learning from lots of examples. Such GPUs may include thousands of cores that are well-suited to run algorithms that loosely represent the parallel nature of the human brain.

Advances in deep neural networks, including the development of multi-layer neural networks, have ignited a new wave of algorithms and tools for data scientists to tap into their data with artificial intelligence (AI). With improved algorithms, larger data sets, and various frameworks (including open-source software libraries for machine learning across a range of tasks), data scientists are tackling new use cases like autonomous driving vehicles, natural language processing and understanding, computer vision, machine reasoning, strong AI, and many others. Applications of AI techniques have materialized in a wide array of products include, for example, Amazon Echo's speech recognition technology that allows users to talk to their machines, Google Translate™ which allows for machine-based language translation, Spotify's Discover Weekly that provides recommendations on new songs and artists that a user may like based on the user's usage and traffic analysis, Quill's text generation offering that takes structured data and turns it into narrative stories, Chatbots that provide real-time, contextually specific answers to questions in a dialog format, and many others.

Data is the heart of modern AI and deep learning algorithms. Before training can begin, one problem that must be addressed revolves around collecting the labeled data that is crucial for training an accurate AI model. A full scale AI deployment may be required to continuously collect, clean, transform, label, and store large amounts of data. Adding additional high quality data points directly translates to more accurate models and better insights. Data samples may undergo a series of processing steps including, but not limited to: 1) ingesting the data from an external source into the training system and storing the data in raw form, 2) cleaning and transforming the data in a format convenient for training, including linking data samples to the appropriate label, 3) exploring parameters and models, quickly testing with a smaller dataset, and iterating to converge on the most promising models to push into the production cluster, 4) executing training phases to select random batches of input data, including both new and older samples, and feeding those into production GPU servers for computation to update model parameters, and 5) evaluating including using a holdback portion of the data not used in training in order to evaluate model accuracy on the holdout data. This lifecycle may apply for any type of parallelized machine learning, not just neural networks or deep learning. For example, standard machine learning frameworks may rely on CPUs instead of GPUs but the data ingest and training workflows may be the same. Readers will appreciate that a single shared storage data hub creates a coordination point throughout the lifecycle without the need for extra data copies among the ingest, preprocessing, and training stages. Rarely is the ingested data used for only one purpose, and shared storage gives the flexibility to train multiple different models or apply traditional analytics to the data.

Readers will appreciate that each stage in the AI data pipeline may have varying requirements from the data hub (e.g., the storage system or collection of storage systems). Scale-out storage systems must deliver uncompromising performance for all manner of access types and patterns—from small, metadata-heavy to large files, from random to sequential access patterns, and from low to high concurrency. The storage systems described above may serve as an ideal AI data hub as the systems may service unstructured workloads. In the first stage, data is ideally ingested and stored on to the same data hub that following stages will use, in order to avoid excess data copying. The next two steps can be done on a standard compute server that optionally includes a GPU, and then in the fourth and last stage, full training production jobs are run on powerful GPU-accelerated servers. Often, there is a production pipeline alongside an experimental pipeline operating on the same dataset. Further, the GPU-accelerated servers can be used independently for different models or joined together to train on one larger model, even spanning multiple systems for distributed training. If the shared storage tier is slow, then data must be copied to local storage for each phase, resulting in wasted time staging data onto different servers. The ideal data hub for the AI training pipeline delivers performance similar to data stored locally on the server node while also having the simplicity and performance to enable all pipeline stages to operate concurrently.

In order for the storage systems described above to serve as a data hub or as part of an AI deployment, in some embodiments the storage systems may be configured to provide DMA between storage devices that are included in the storage systems and one or more GPUs that are used in an AI or big data analytics pipeline. The one or more GPUs may be coupled to the storage system, for example, via NVMe-over-Fabrics (‘NVMe-oF’) such that bottlenecks such as the host CPU can be bypassed and the storage system (or one of the components contained therein) can directly access GPU memory. In such an example, the storage systems may leverage API hooks to the GPUs to transfer data directly to the GPUs. For example, the GPUs may be embodied as Nvidia™ GPUs and the storage systems may support GPUDirect Storage (‘GDS’) software, or have similar proprietary software, that enables the storage system to transfer data to the GPUs via RDMA or similar mechanism.

Although the preceding paragraphs discuss deep learning applications, readers will appreciate that the storage systems described herein may also be part of a distributed deep learning (‘DDL’) platform to support the execution of DDL algorithms. The storage systems described above may also be paired with other technologies such as TensorFlow, an open-source software library for dataflow programming across a range of tasks that may be used for machine learning applications such as neural networks, to facilitate the development of such machine learning models, applications, and so on.

The storage systems described above may also be used in a neuromorphic computing environment. Neuromorphic computing is a form of computing that mimics brain cells. To support neuromorphic computing, an architecture of interconnected “neurons” replace traditional computing models with low-powered signals that go directly between neurons for more efficient computation. Neuromorphic computing may make use of very-large-scale integration (VLSI) systems containing electronic analog circuits to mimic neuro-biological architectures present in the nervous system, as well as analog, digital, mixed-mode analog/digital VLSI, and software systems that implement models of neural systems for perception, motor control, or multisensory integration.

Readers will appreciate that the storage systems described above may be configured to support the storage or use of (among other types of data) blockchains and derivative items such as, for example, open source blockchains and related tools that are part of the IBM™ Hyperledger project, permissioned blockchains in which a certain number of trusted parties are allowed to access the block chain, blockchain products that enable developers to build their own distributed ledger projects, and others. Blockchains and the storage systems described herein may be leveraged to support on-chain storage of data as well as off-chain storage of data.

Off-chain storage of data can be implemented in a variety of ways and can occur when the data itself is not stored within the blockchain. For example, in one embodiment, a hash function may be utilized and the data itself may be fed into the hash function to generate a hash value. In such an example, the hashes of large pieces of data may be embedded within transactions, instead of the data itself. Readers will appreciate that, in other embodiments, alternatives to blockchains may be used to facilitate the decentralized storage of information. For example, one alternative to a blockchain that may be used is a blockweave. While conventional blockchains store every transaction to achieve validation, a blockweave permits secure decentralization without the usage of the entire chain, thereby enabling low cost on-chain storage of data. Such blockweaves may utilize a consensus mechanism that is based on proof of access (PoA) and proof of work (PoW).

The storage systems described above may, either alone or in combination with other computing devices, be used to support in-memory computing applications. In-memory computing involves the storage of information in RAM that is distributed across a cluster of computers. Readers will appreciate that the storage systems described above, especially those that are configurable with customizable amounts of processing resources, storage resources, and memory resources (e.g., those systems in which blades that contain configurable amounts of each type of resource), may be configured in a way so as to provide an infrastructure that can support in-memory computing. Likewise, the storage systems described above may include component parts (e.g., NVDIMMs, 3D crosspoint storage that provide fast random access memory that is persistent) that can actually provide for an improved in-memory computing environment as compared to in-memory computing environments that rely on RAM distributed across dedicated servers.

In some embodiments, the storage systems described above may be configured to operate as a hybrid in-memory computing environment that includes a universal interface to all storage media (e.g., RAM, flash storage, 3D crosspoint storage). In such embodiments, users may have no knowledge regarding the details of where their data is stored but they can still use the same full, unified API to address data. In such embodiments, the storage system may (in the background) move data to the fastest layer available—including intelligently placing the data in dependence upon various characteristics of the data or in dependence upon some other heuristic. In such an example, the storage systems may even make use of existing products such as Apache Ignite and GridGain to move data between the various storage layers, or the storage systems may make use of custom software to move data between the various storage layers. The storage systems described herein may implement various optimizations to improve the performance of in-memory computing such as, for example, having computations occur as close to the data as possible.

Readers will further appreciate that in some embodiments, the storage systems described above may be paired with other resources to support the applications described above. For example, one infrastructure could include primary compute in the form of servers and workstations which specialize in using General-purpose computing on graphics processing units (‘GPGPU’) to accelerate deep learning applications that are interconnected into a computation engine to train parameters for deep neural networks. Each system may have Ethernet external connectivity, InfiniB and external connectivity, some other form of external connectivity, or some combination thereof. In such an example, the GPUs can be grouped for a single large training or used independently to train multiple models. The infrastructure could also include a storage system such as those described above to provide, for example, a scale-out all-flash file or object store through which data can be accessed via high-performance protocols such as NFS, S3, and so on. The infrastructure can also include, for example, redundant top-of-rack Ethernet switches connected to storage and compute via ports in MLAG port channels for redundancy. The infrastructure could also include additional compute in the form of whitebox servers, optionally with GPUs, for data ingestion, pre-processing, and model debugging. Readers will appreciate that additional infrastructures are also possible.

Readers will appreciate that the storage systems described above, either alone or in coordination with other computing machinery may be configured to support other AI related tools. For example, the storage systems may make use of tools like ONXX or other open neural network exchange formats that make it easier to transfer models written in different AI frameworks. Likewise, the storage systems may be configured to support tools like Amazon's Gluon that allow developers to prototype, build, and train deep learning models. In fact, the storage systems described above may be part of a larger platform, such as IBM™ Cloud Private for Data, that includes integrated data science, data engineering and application building services.

Readers will further appreciate that the storage systems described above may also be deployed as an edge solution. Such an edge solution may be in place to optimize cloud computing systems by performing data processing at the edge of the network, near the source of the data. Edge computing can push applications, data and computing power (i.e., services) away from centralized points to the logical extremes of a network. Through the use of edge solutions such as the storage systems described above, computational tasks may be performed using the compute resources provided by such storage systems, data may be storage using the storage resources of the storage system, and cloud-based services may be accessed through the use of various resources of the storage system (including networking resources). By performing computational tasks on the edge solution, storing data on the edge solution, and generally making use of the edge solution, the consumption of expensive cloud-based resources may be avoided and, in fact, performance improvements may be experienced relative to a heavier reliance on cloud-based resources.

While many tasks may benefit from the utilization of an edge solution, some particular uses may be especially suited for deployment in such an environment. For example, devices like drones, autonomous cars, robots, and others may require extremely rapid processing—so fast, in fact, that sending data up to a cloud environment and back to receive data processing support may simply be too slow. As an additional example, some IoT devices such as connected video cameras may not be well-suited for the utilization of cloud-based resources as it may be impractical (not only from a privacy perspective, security perspective, or a financial perspective) to send the data to the cloud simply because of the pure volume of data that is involved. As such, many tasks that really on data processing, storage, or communications may be better suited by platforms that include edge solutions such as the storage systems described above.

The storage systems described above may alone, or in combination with other computing resources, serves as a network edge platform that combines compute resources, storage resources, networking resources, cloud technologies and network virtualization technologies, and so on. As part of the network, the edge may take on characteristics similar to other network facilities, from the customer premise and backhaul aggregation facilities to Points of Presence (PoPs) and regional data centers. Readers will appreciate that network workloads, such as Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) and others, will reside on the network edge platform. Enabled by a combination of containers and virtual machines, the network edge platform may rely on controllers and schedulers that are no longer geographically co-located with the data processing resources. The functions, as microservices, may split into control planes, user and data planes, or even state machines, allowing for independent optimization and scaling techniques to be applied. Such user and data planes may be enabled through increased accelerators, both those residing in server platforms, such as FPGAs and Smart NICs, and through SDN-enabled merchant silicon and programmable ASICs.

The storage systems described above may also be optimized for use in big data analytics, including being leveraged as part of a composable data analytics pipeline where containerized analytics architectures, for example, make analytics capabilities more composable. Big data analytics may be generally described as the process of examining large and varied data sets to uncover hidden patterns, unknown correlations, market trends, customer preferences and other useful information that can help organizations make more-informed business decisions. As part of that process, semi-structured and unstructured data such as, for example, internet clickstream data, web server logs, social media content, text from customer emails and survey responses, mobile-phone call-detail records, IoT sensor data, and other data may be converted to a structured form.

The storage systems described above may also support (including implementing as a system interface) applications that perform tasks in response to human speech. For example, the storage systems may support the execution of intelligent personal assistant applications such as, for example, Amazon's Alexa™, Apple Siri™, Google Voice™, Samsung Bixby™, Microsoft Cortana™, and others. While the examples described in the previous sentence make use of voice as input, the storage systems described above may also support chatbots, talkbots, chatterbots, or artificial conversational entities or other applications that are configured to conduct a conversation via auditory or textual methods. Likewise, the storage system may actually execute such an application to enable a user such as a system administrator to interact with the storage system via speech. Such applications are generally capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic, and other real time information, such as news, although in embodiments in accordance with the present disclosure, such applications may be utilized as interfaces to various system management operations.

The storage systems described above may also implement AI platforms for delivering on the vision of self-driving storage. Such AI platforms may be configured to deliver global predictive intelligence by collecting and analyzing large amounts of storage system telemetry data points to enable effortless management, analytics and support. In fact, such storage systems may be capable of predicting both capacity and performance, as well as generating intelligent advice on workload deployment, interaction and optimization. Such AI platforms may be configured to scan all incoming storage system telemetry data against a library of issue fingerprints to predict and resolve incidents in real-time, before they impact customer environments, and captures hundreds of variables related to performance that are used to forecast performance load.

The storage systems described above may support the serialized or simultaneous execution of artificial intelligence applications, machine learning applications, data analytics applications, data transformations, and other tasks that collectively may form an AI ladder. Such an AI ladder may effectively be formed by combining such elements to form a complete data science pipeline, where exist dependencies between elements of the AI ladder. For example, AI may require that some form of machine learning has taken place, machine learning may require that some form of analytics has taken place, analytics may require that some form of data and information architecting has taken place, and so on. As such, each element may be viewed as a rung in an AI ladder that collectively can form a complete and sophisticated AI solution.

The storage systems described above may also, either alone or in combination with other computing environments, be used to deliver an AI everywhere experience where AI permeates wide and expansive aspects of business and life. For example, AI may play an important role in the delivery of deep learning solutions, deep reinforcement learning solutions, artificial general intelligence solutions, autonomous vehicles, cognitive computing solutions, commercial UAVs or drones, conversational user interfaces, enterprise taxonomies, ontology management solutions, machine learning solutions, smart dust, smart robots, smart workplaces, and many others.

The storage systems described above may also, either alone or in combination with other computing environments, be used to deliver a wide range of transparently immersive experiences (including those that use digital twins of various “things” such as people, places, processes, systems, and so on) where technology can introduce transparency between people, businesses, and things. Such transparently immersive experiences may be delivered as augmented reality technologies, connected homes, virtual reality technologies, brain-computer interfaces, human augmentation technologies, nanotube electronics, volumetric displays, 4D printing technologies, or others.

The storage systems described above may also, either alone or in combination with other computing environments, be used to support a wide variety of digital platforms. Such digital platforms can include, for example, 5G wireless systems and platforms, digital twin platforms, edge computing platforms, IoT platforms, quantum computing platforms, serverless PaaS, software-defined security, neuromorphic computing platforms, and so on.

The storage systems described above may also be part of a multi-cloud environment in which multiple cloud computing and storage services are deployed in a single heterogeneous architecture. In order to facilitate the operation of such a multi-cloud environment, DevOps tools may be deployed to enable orchestration across clouds. Likewise, continuous development and continuous integration tools may be deployed to standardize processes around continuous integration and delivery, new feature rollout and provisioning cloud workloads. By standardizing these processes, a multi-cloud strategy may be implemented that enables the utilization of the best provider for each workload.

The storage systems described above may be used as a part of a platform to enable the use of crypto-anchors that may be used to authenticate a product's origins and contents to ensure that it matches a blockchain record associated with the product. Similarly, as part of a suite of tools to secure data stored on the storage system, the storage systems described above may implement various encryption technologies and schemes, including lattice cryptography. Lattice cryptography can involve constructions of cryptographic primitives that involve lattices, either in the construction itself or in the security proof. Unlike public-key schemes such as the RSA, Diffie-Hellman or Elliptic-Curve cryptosystems, which are easily attacked by a quantum computer, some lattice-based constructions appear to be resistant to attack by both classical and quantum computers.

A quantum computer is a device that performs quantum computing. Quantum computing is computing using quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement. Quantum computers differ from traditional computers that are based on transistors, as such traditional computers require that data be encoded into binary digits (bits), each of which is always in one of two definite states (0 or 1). In contrast to traditional computers, quantum computers use quantum bits, which can be in superpositions of states. A quantum computer maintains a sequence of qubits, where a single qubit can represent a one, a zero, or any quantum superposition of those two qubit states. A pair of qubits can be in any quantum superposition of 4 states, and three qubits in any superposition of 8 states. A quantum computer with n qubits can generally be in an arbitrary superposition of up to 2{circumflex over ( )}n different states simultaneously, whereas a traditional computer can only be in one of these states at any one time. A quantum Turing machine is a theoretical model of such a computer.

The storage systems described above may also be paired with FPGA-accelerated servers as part of a larger AI or ML infrastructure. Such FPGA-accelerated servers may reside near (e.g., in the same data center) the storage systems described above or even incorporated into an appliance that includes one or more storage systems, one or more FPGA-accelerated servers, networking infrastructure that supports communications between the one or more storage systems and the one or more FPGA-accelerated servers, as well as other hardware and software components. Alternatively, FPGA-accelerated servers may reside within a cloud computing environment that may be used to perform compute-related tasks for AI and ML jobs. Any of the embodiments described above may be used to collectively serve as a FPGA-based AI or ML platform. Readers will appreciate that, in some embodiments of the FPGA-based AI or ML platform, the FPGAs that are contained within the FPGA-accelerated servers may be reconfigured for different types of ML models (e.g., LSTMs, CNNs, GRUs). The ability to reconfigure the FPGAs that are contained within the FPGA-accelerated servers may enable the acceleration of a ML or AI application based on the most optimal numerical precision and memory model being used. Readers will appreciate that by treating the collection of FPGA-accelerated servers as a pool of FPGAs, any CPU in the data center may utilize the pool of FPGAs as a shared hardware microservice, rather than limiting a server to dedicated accelerators plugged into it.

The FPGA-accelerated servers and the GPU-accelerated servers described above may implement a model of computing where, rather than keeping a small amount of data in a CPU and running a long stream of instructions over it as occurred in more traditional computing models, the machine learning model and parameters are pinned into the high-bandwidth on-chip memory with lots of data streaming through the high-bandwidth on-chip memory. FPGAs may even be more efficient than GPUs for this computing model, as the FPGAs can be programmed with only the instructions needed to run this kind of computing model.

The storage systems described above may be configured to provide parallel storage, for example, through the use of a parallel file system such as BeeGFS. Such parallel files systems may include a distributed metadata architecture. For example, the parallel file system may include a plurality of metadata servers across which metadata is distributed, as well as components that include services for clients and storage servers.

The systems described above can support the execution of a wide array of software applications. Such software applications can be deployed in a variety of ways, including container-based deployment models. Containerized applications may be managed using a variety of tools. For example, containerized applications may be managed using Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, and others. Containerized applications may be used to facilitate a serverless, cloud native computing deployment and management model for software applications. In support of a serverless, cloud native computing deployment and management model for software applications, containers may be used as part of an event handling mechanisms (e.g., AWS Lambdas) such that various events cause a containerized application to be spun up to operate as an event handler.

The systems described above may be deployed in a variety of ways, including being deployed in ways that support fifth generation (‘5G’) networks. 5G networks may support substantially faster data communications than previous generations of mobile communications networks and, as a consequence may lead to the disaggregation of data and computing resources as modern massive data centers may become less prominent and may be replaced, for example, by more-local, micro data centers that are close to the mobile-network towers. The systems described above may be included in such local, micro data centers and may be part of or paired to multi-access edge computing (‘MEC’) systems. Such MEC systems may enable cloud computing capabilities and an IT service environment at the edge of the cellular network. By running applications and performing related processing tasks closer to the cellular customer, network congestion may be reduced and applications may perform better.

The storage systems described above may also be configured to implement NVMe Zoned Namespaces. Through the use of NVMe Zoned Namespaces, the logical address space of a namespace is divided into zones. Each zone provides a logical block address range that must be written sequentially and explicitly reset before rewriting, thereby enabling the creation of namespaces that expose the natural boundaries of the device and offload management of internal mapping tables to the host. In order to implement NVMe Zoned Name Spaces (‘ZNS’), ZNS SSDs or some other form of zoned block devices may be utilized that expose a namespace logical address space using zones. With the zones aligned to the internal physical properties of the device, several inefficiencies in the placement of data can be eliminated. In such embodiments, each zone may be mapped, for example, to a separate application such that functions like wear levelling and garbage collection could be performed on a per-zone or per-application basis rather than across the entire device. In order to support ZNS, the storage controllers described herein may be configured with to interact with zoned block devices through the usage of, for example, the Linux™ kernel zoned block device interface or other tools.

The storage systems described above may also be configured to implement zoned storage in other ways such as, for example, through the usage of shingled magnetic recording (SMR) storage devices. In examples where zoned storage is used, device-managed embodiments may be deployed where the storage devices hide this complexity by managing it in the firmware, presenting an interface like any other storage device. Alternatively, zoned storage may be implemented via a host-managed embodiment that depends on the operating system to know how to handle the drive, and only write sequentially to certain regions of the drive. Zoned storage may similarly be implemented using a host-aware embodiment in which a combination of a drive managed and host managed implementation is deployed.

The storage systems described herein may be used to form a data lake. A data lake may operate as the first place that an organization's data flows to, where such data may be in a raw format. Metadata tagging may be implemented to facilitate searches of data elements in the data lake, especially in embodiments where the data lake contains multiple stores of data, in formats not easily accessible or readable (e.g., unstructured data, semi-structured data, structured data). From the data lake, data may go downstream to a data warehouse where data may be stored in a more processed, packaged, and consumable format. The storage systems described above may also be used to implement such a data warehouse. In addition, a data mart or data hub may allow for data that is even more easily consumed, where the storage systems described above may also be used to provide the underlying storage resources necessary for a data mart or data hub. In embodiments, queries the data lake may require a schema-on-read approach, where data is applied to a plan or schema as it is pulled out of a stored location, rather than as it goes into the stored location.

The storage systems described herein may also be configured to implement a recovery point objective (‘RPO’), which may be establish by a user, established by an administrator, established as a system default, established as part of a storage class or service that the storage system is participating in the delivery of, or in some other way. A “recovery point objective” is a goal for the maximum time difference between the last update to a source dataset and the last recoverable replicated dataset update that would be correctly recoverable, given a reason to do so, from a continuously or frequently updated copy of the source dataset. An update is correctly recoverable if it properly takes into account all updates that were processed on the source dataset prior to the last recoverable replicated dataset update.

In synchronous replication, the RPO would be zero, meaning that under normal operation, all completed updates on the source dataset should be present and correctly recoverable on the copy dataset. In best effort nearly synchronous replication, the RPO can be as low as a few seconds. In snapshot-based replication, the RPO can be roughly calculated as the interval between snapshots plus the time to transfer the modifications between a previous already transferred snapshot and the most recent to-be-replicated snapshot.

If updates accumulate faster than they are replicated, then an RPO can be missed. If more data to be replicated accumulates between two snapshots, for snapshot-based replication, than can be replicated between taking the snapshot and replicating that snapshot's cumulative updates to the copy, then the RPO can be missed. If, again in snapshot-based replication, data to be replicated accumulates at a faster rate than could be transferred in the time between subsequent snapshots, then replication can start to fall further behind which can extend the miss between the expected recovery point objective and the actual recovery point that is represented by the last correctly replicated update.

The storage systems described above may also be part of a shared nothing storage cluster. In a shared nothing storage cluster, each node of the cluster has local storage and communicates with other nodes in the cluster through networks, where the storage used by the cluster is (in general) provided only by the storage connected to each individual node. A collection of nodes that are synchronously replicating a dataset may be one example of a shared nothing storage cluster, as each storage system has local storage and communicates to other storage systems through a network, where those storage systems do not (in general) use storage from somewhere else that they share access to through some kind of interconnect. In contrast, some of the storage systems described above are themselves built as a shared-storage cluster, since there are drive shelves that are shared by the paired controllers. Other storage systems described above, however, are built as a shared nothing storage cluster, as all storage is local to a particular node (e.g., a blade) and all communication is through networks that link the compute nodes together.

In other embodiments, other forms of a shared nothing storage cluster can include embodiments where any node in the cluster has a local copy of all storage they need, and where data is mirrored through a synchronous style of replication to other nodes in the cluster either to ensure that the data isn't lost or because other nodes are also using that storage. In such an embodiment, if a new cluster node needs some data, that data can be copied to the new node from other nodes that have copies of the data.

In some embodiments, mirror-copy-based shared storage clusters may store multiple copies of all the cluster's stored data, with each subset of data replicated to a particular set of nodes, and different subsets of data replicated to different sets of nodes. In some variations, embodiments may store all of the cluster's stored data in all nodes, whereas in other variations nodes may be divided up such that a first set of nodes will all store the same set of data and a second, different set of nodes will all store a different set of data.

Readers will appreciate that RAFT-based databases (e.g., etcd) may operate like shared-nothing storage clusters where all RAFT nodes store all data. The amount of data stored in a RAFT cluster, however, may be limited so that extra copies don't consume too much storage. A container server cluster might also be able to replicate all data to all cluster nodes, presuming the containers don't tend to be too large and their bulk data (the data manipulated by the applications that run in the containers) is stored elsewhere such as in an S3 cluster or an external file server. In such an example, the container storage may be provided by the cluster directly through its shared-nothing storage model, with those containers providing the images that form the execution environment for parts of an application or service.

For further explanation, FIG. 3D illustrates an exemplary computing device 350 that may be specifically configured to perform one or more of the processes described herein. As shown in FIG. 3D, computing device 350 may include a communication interface 352, a processor 354, a storage device 356, and an input/output (“I/O”) module 358 communicatively connected one to another via a communication infrastructure 360. While an exemplary computing device 350 is shown in FIG. 3D, the components illustrated in FIG. 3D are not intended to be limiting. Additional or alternative components may be used in other embodiments. Components of computing device 350 shown in FIG. 3D will now be described in additional detail.

Communication interface 352 may be configured to communicate with one or more computing devices. Examples of communication interface 352 include, without limitation, a wired network interface (such as a network interface card), a wireless network interface (such as a wireless network interface card), a modem, an audio/video connection, and any other suitable interface.

Processor 354 generally represents any type or form of processing unit capable of processing data and/or interpreting, executing, and/or directing execution of one or more of the instructions, processes, and/or operations described herein. Processor 354 may perform operations by executing computer-executable instructions 362 (e.g., an application, software, code, and/or other executable data instance) stored in storage device 356.

Storage device 356 may include one or more data storage media, devices, or configurations and may employ any type, form, and combination of data storage media and/or device. For example, storage device 356 may include, but is not limited to, any combination of the non-volatile media and/or volatile media described herein. Electronic data, including data described herein, may be temporarily and/or permanently stored in storage device 356. For example, data representative of computer-executable instructions 362 configured to direct processor 354 to perform any of the operations described herein may be stored within storage device 356. In some examples, data may be arranged in one or more databases residing within storage device 356.

I/O module 358 may include one or more I/O modules configured to receive user input and provide user output. I/O module 358 may include any hardware, firmware, software, or combination thereof supportive of input and output capabilities. For example, I/O module 358 may include hardware and/or software for capturing user input, including, but not limited to, a keyboard or keypad, a touchscreen component (e.g., touchscreen display), a receiver (e.g., an RF or infrared receiver), motion sensors, and/or one or more input buttons.

I/O module 358 may include one or more devices for presenting output to a user, including, but not limited to, a graphics engine, a display (e.g., a display screen), one or more output drivers (e.g., display drivers), one or more audio speakers, and one or more audio drivers. In certain embodiments, I/O module 358 is configured to provide graphical data to a display for presentation to a user. The graphical data may be representative of one or more graphical user interfaces and/or any other graphical content as may serve a particular implementation. In some examples, any of the systems, computing devices, and/or other components described herein may be implemented by computing device 350.

For further explanation, FIG. 3E illustrates an example of a fleet of storage systems 376 for providing storage services (also referred to herein as ‘data services’). The fleet of storage systems 376 depicted in FIG. 3E includes a plurality of storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n that may each be similar to the storage systems described herein. The storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n in the fleet of storage systems 376 may be embodied as identical storage systems or as different types of storage systems. For example, two of the storage systems 374 a, 374 n depicted in FIG. 3E are depicted as being cloud-based storage systems, as the resources that collectively form each of the storage systems 374 a, 374 n are provided by distinct cloud services providers 370, 372. For example, the first cloud services provider 370 may be Amazon AWS™ whereas the second cloud services provider 372 is Microsoft Azure™, although in other embodiments one or more public clouds, private clouds, or combinations thereof may be used to provide the underlying resources that are used to form a particular storage system in the fleet of storage systems 376.

The example depicted in FIG. 3E includes an edge management service 366 for delivering storage services in accordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure. The storage services (also referred to herein as ‘data services’) that are delivered may include, for example, services to provide a certain amount of storage to a consumer, services to provide storage to a consumer in accordance with a predetermined service level agreement, services to provide storage to a consumer in accordance with predetermined regulatory requirements, and many others.

The edge management service 366 depicted in FIG. 3E may be embodied, for example, as one or more modules of computer program instructions executing on computer hardware such as one or more computer processors. Alternatively, the edge management service 366 may be embodied as one or more modules of computer program instructions executing on a virtualized execution environment such as one or more virtual machines, in one or more containers, or in some other way. In other embodiments, the edge management service 366 may be embodied as a combination of the embodiments described above, including embodiments where the one or more modules of computer program instructions that are included in the edge management service 366 are distributed across multiple physical or virtual execution environments.

The edge management service 366 may operate as a gateway for providing storage services to storage consumers, where the storage services leverage storage offered by one or more storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n. For example, the edge management service 366 may be configured to provide storage services to host devices 378 a, 378 b, 378 c, 378 d, 378 n that are executing one or more applications that consume the storage services. In such an example, the edge management service 366 may operate as a gateway between the host devices 378 a, 378 b, 378 c, 378 d, 378 n and the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n, rather than requiring that the host devices 378 a, 378 b, 378 c, 378 d, 378 n directly access the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n.

The edge management service 366 of FIG. 3E exposes a storage services module 364 to the host devices 378 a, 378 b, 378 c, 378 d, 378 n of FIG. 3E, although in other embodiments the edge management service 366 may expose the storage services module 364 to other consumers of the various storage services. The various storage services may be presented to consumers via one or more user interfaces, via one or more APIs, or through some other mechanism provided by the storage services module 364. As such, the storage services module 364 depicted in FIG. 3E may be embodied as one or more modules of computer program instructions executing on physical hardware, on a virtualized execution environment, or combinations thereof, where executing such modules causes enables a consumer of storage services to be offered, select, and access the various storage services.

The edge management service 366 of FIG. 3E also includes a system management services module 368. The system management services module 368 of FIG. 3E includes one or more modules of computer program instructions that, when executed, perform various operations in coordination with the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n to provide storage services to the host devices 378 a, 378 b, 378 c, 378 d, 378 n. The system management services module 368 may be configured, for example, to perform tasks such as provisioning storage resources from the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n via one or more APIs exposed by the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n, migrating datasets or workloads amongst the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n via one or more APIs exposed by the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n, setting one or more tunable parameters (i.e., one or more configurable settings) on the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n via one or more APIs exposed by the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n, and so on. For example, many of the services described below relate to embodiments where the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n are configured to operate in some way. In such examples, the system management services module 368 may be responsible for using APIs (or some other mechanism) provided by the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n to configure the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n to operate in the ways described below.

In addition to configuring the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n, the edge management service 366 itself may be configured to perform various tasks required to provide the various storage services. Consider an example in which the storage service includes a service that, when selected and applied, causes personally identifiable information (PIP) contained in a dataset to be obfuscated when the dataset is accessed. In such an example, the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n may be configured to obfuscate PII when servicing read requests directed to the dataset. Alternatively, the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n may service reads by returning data that includes the PII, but the edge management service 366 itself may obfuscate the PII as the data is passed through the edge management service 366 on its way from the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n to the host devices 378 a, 378 b, 378 c, 378 d, 378 n.

The storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n depicted in FIG. 3E may be embodied as one or more of the storage systems described above with reference to FIGS. 1A-3D, including variations thereof. In fact, the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n may serve as a pool of storage resources where the individual components in that pool have different performance characteristics, different storage characteristics, and so on. For example, one of the storage systems 374 a may be a cloud-based storage system, another storage system 374 b may be a storage system that provides block storage, another storage system 374 c may be a storage system that provides file storage, another storage system 374 d may be a relatively high-performance storage system while another storage system 374 n may be a relatively low-performance storage system, and so on. In alternative embodiments, only a single storage system may be present.

The storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n depicted in FIG. 3E may also be organized into different failure domains so that the failure of one storage system 374 a should be totally unrelated to the failure of another storage system 374 b. For example, each of the storage systems may receive power from independent power systems, each of the storage systems may be coupled for data communications over independent data communications networks, and so on. Furthermore, the storage systems in a first failure domain may be accessed via a first gateway whereas storage systems in a second failure domain may be accessed via a second gateway. For example, the first gateway may be a first instance of the edge management service 366 and the second gateway may be a second instance of the edge management service 366, including embodiments where each instance is distinct, or each instance is part of a distributed edge management service 366.

As an illustrative example of available storage services, storage services may be presented to a user that are associated with different levels of data protection. For example, storage services may be presented to the user that, when selected and enforced, guarantee the user that data associated with that user will be protected such that various recovery point objectives (‘RPO’) can be guaranteed. A first available storage service may ensure, for example, that some dataset associated with the user will be protected such that any data that is more than 5 seconds old can be recovered in the event of a failure of the primary data store whereas a second available storage service may ensure that the dataset that is associated with the user will be protected such that any data that is more than 5 minutes old can be recovered in the event of a failure of the primary data store.

An additional example of storage services that may be presented to a user, selected by a user, and ultimately applied to a dataset associated with the user can include one or more data compliance services. Such data compliance services may be embodied, for example, as services that may be provided to consumers (i.e., a user) the data compliance services to ensure that the user's datasets are managed in a way to adhere to various regulatory requirements. For example, one or more data compliance services may be offered to a user to ensure that the user's datasets are managed in a way so as to adhere to the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’), one or more data compliance services may be offered to a user to ensure that the user's datasets are managed in a way so as to adhere to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (‘SOX’), or one or more data compliance services may be offered to a user to ensure that the user's datasets are managed in a way so as to adhere to some other regulatory act. In addition, the one or more data compliance services may be offered to a user to ensure that the user's datasets are managed in a way so as to adhere to some non-governmental guidance (e.g., to adhere to best practices for auditing purposes), the one or more data compliance services may be offered to a user to ensure that the user's datasets are managed in a way so as to adhere to a particular clients or organizations requirements, and so on.

In order to provide this particular data compliance service, the data compliance service may be presented to a user (e.g., via a GUI) and selected by the user. In response to receiving the selection of the particular data compliance service, one or more storage services policies may be applied to a dataset associated with the user to carry out the particular data compliance service. For example, a storage services policy may be applied requiring that the dataset be encrypted prior to being stored in a storage system, prior to being stored in a cloud environment, or prior to being stored elsewhere. In order to enforce this policy, a requirement may be enforced not only requiring that the dataset be encrypted when stored, but a requirement may be put in place requiring that the dataset be encrypted prior to transmitting the dataset (e.g., sending the dataset to another party). In such an example, a storage services policy may also be put in place requiring that any encryption keys used to encrypt the dataset are not stored on the same system that stores the dataset itself. Readers will appreciate that many other forms of data compliance services may be offered and implemented in accordance with embodiments of the present disclosure.

The storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n in the fleet of storage systems 376 may be managed collectively, for example, by one or more fleet management modules. The fleet management modules may be part of or separate from the system management services module 368 depicted in FIG. 3E. The fleet management modules may perform tasks such as monitoring the health of each storage system in the fleet, initiating updates or upgrades on one or more storage systems in the fleet, migrating workloads for loading balancing or other performance purposes, and many other tasks. As such, and for many other reasons, the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n may be coupled to each other via one or more data communications links in order to exchange data between the storage systems 374 a, 374 b, 374 c, through 374 n.

In some embodiments, one or more storage systems or one or more elements of storage systems (e.g., features, services, operations, components, etc. of storage systems), such as any of the illustrative storage systems or storage system elements described herein may be implemented in one or more container systems. A container system may include any system that supports execution of one or more containerized applications or services. Such a service may be software deployed as infrastructure for building applications, for operating a run-time environment, and/or as infrastructure for other services. In the discussion that follows, descriptions of containerized applications generally apply to containerized services as well.

A container may combine one or more elements of a containerized software application together with a runtime environment for operating those elements of the software application bundled into a single image. For example, each such container of a containerized application may include executable code of the software application and various dependencies, libraries, and/or other components, together with network configurations and configured access to additional resources, used by the elements of the software application within the particular container in order to enable operation of those elements. A containerized application can be represented as a collection of such containers that together represent all the elements of the application combined with the various run-time environments needed for all those elements to run. As a result, the containerized application may be abstracted away from host operating systems as a combined collection of lightweight and portable packages and configurations, where the containerized application may be uniformly deployed and consistently executed in different computing environments that use different container-compatible operating systems or different infrastructures. In some embodiments, a containerized application shares a kernel with a host computer system and executes as an isolated environment (an isolated collection of files and directories, processes, system and network resources, and configured access to additional resources and capabilities) that is isolated by an operating system of a host system in conjunction with a container management framework. When executed, a containerized application may provide one or more containerized workloads and/or services.

The container system may include and/or utilize a cluster of nodes. For example, the container system may be configured to manage deployment and execution of containerized applications on one or more nodes in a cluster. The containerized applications may utilize resources of the nodes, such as memory, processing and/or storage resources provided and/or accessed by the nodes. The storage resources may include any of the illustrative storage resources described herein and may include on-node resources such as a local tree of files and directories, off-node resources such as external networked file systems, databases or object stores, or both on-node and off-node resources. Access to additional resources and capabilities that could be configured for containers of a containerized application could include specialized computation capabilities such as GPUs and AI/ML engines, or specialized hardware such as sensors and cameras.

In some embodiments, the container system may include a container orchestration system (which may also be referred to as a container orchestrator, a container orchestration platform, etc.) designed to make it reasonably simple and for many use cases automated to deploy, scale, and manage containerized applications. In some embodiments, the container system may include a storage management system configured to provision and manage storage resources (e.g., virtual volumes) for private or shared use by cluster nodes and/or containers of containerized applications.

FIG. 3F illustrates an example container system 380. In this example, the container system 380 includes a container storage system 381 that may be configured to perform one or more storage management operations to organize, provision, and manage storage resources for use by one or more containerized applications 382-1 through 382-L of container system 380. In particular, the container storage system 381 may organize storage resources into one or more storage pools 383 of storage resources for use by containerized applications 382-1 through 382-L. The container storage system may itself be implemented as a containerized service.

The container system 380 may include or be implemented by one or more container orchestration systems, including Kubernetes™, Mesos™, Docker Swarm™, among others. The container orchestration system may manage the container system 380 running on a cluster 384 through services implemented by a control node, depicted as 385, and may further manage the container storage system or the relationship between individual containers and their storage, memory and CPU limits, networking, and their access to additional resources or services.

A control plane of the container system 380 may implement services that include: deploying applications via a controller 386, monitoring applications via the controller 386, providing an interface via an API server 387, and scheduling deployments via scheduler 388. In this example, controller 386, scheduler 388, API server 387, and container storage system 381 are implemented on a single node, node 385. In other examples, for resiliency, the control plane may be implemented by multiple, redundant nodes, where if a node that is providing management services for the container system 380 fails, then another, redundant node may provide management services for the cluster 384.

A data plane of the container system 380 may include a set of nodes that provides container runtimes for executing containerized applications. An individual node within the cluster 384 may execute a container runtime, such as Docker™, and execute a container manager, or node agent, such as a kubelet in Kubernetes (not depicted) that communicates with the control plane via a local network-connected agent (sometimes called a proxy), such as an agent 389. The agent 389 may route network traffic to and from containers using, for example, Internet Protocol (IP) port numbers. For example, a containerized application may request a storage class from the control plane, where the request is handled by the container manager, and the container manager communicates the request to the control plane using the agent 389.

Cluster 384 may include a set of nodes that run containers for managed containerized applications. A node may be a virtual or physical machine. A node may be a host system.

The container storage system 381 may orchestrate storage resources to provide storage to the container system 380. For example, the container storage system 381 may provide persistent storage to containerized applications 382-1-382-L using the storage pool 383. The container storage system 381 may itself be deployed as a containerized application by a container orchestration system.

For example, the container storage system 381 application may be deployed within cluster 384 and perform management functions for providing storage to the containerized applications 382. Management functions may include determining one or more storage pools from available storage resources, provisioning virtual volumes on one or more nodes, replicating data, responding to and recovering from host and network faults, or handling storage operations. The storage pool 383 may include storage resources from one or more local or remote sources, where the storage resources may be different types of storage, including, as examples, block storage, file storage, and object storage.

The container storage system 381 may also be deployed on a set of nodes for which persistent storage may be provided by the container orchestration system. In some examples, the container storage system 381 may be deployed on all nodes in a cluster 384 using, for example, a Kubernetes DaemonSet. In this example, nodes 390-1 through 390-N provide a container runtime where container storage system 381 executes. In other examples, some, but not all nodes in a cluster may execute the container storage system 381.

The container storage system 381 may handle storage on a node and communicate with the control plane of container system 380, to provide dynamic volumes, including persistent volumes. A persistent volume may be mounted on a node as a virtual volume, such as virtual volumes 391-1 and 391-P. After a virtual volume 391 is mounted, containerized applications may request and use, or be otherwise configured to use, storage provided by the virtual volume 391. In this example, the container storage system 381 may install a driver on a kernel of a node, where the driver handles storage operations directed to the virtual volume. In this example, the driver may receive a storage operation directed to a virtual volume, and in response, the driver may perform the storage operation on one or more storage resources within the storage pool 383, possibly under direction from or using additional logic within containers that implement the container storage system 381 as a containerized service.

The container storage system 381 may, in response to being deployed as a containerized service, determine available storage resources. For example, storage resources 392-1 through 392-M may include local storage, remote storage (storage on a separate node in a cluster), or both local and remote storage. Storage resources may also include storage from external sources such as various combinations of block storage systems, file storage systems, and object storage systems. The storage resources 392-1 through 392-M may include any type(s) and/or configuration(s) of storage resources (e.g., any of the illustrative storage resources described above), and the container storage system 381 may be configured to determine the available storage resources in any suitable way, including based on a configuration file. For example, a configuration file may specify account and authentication information for cloud-based object storage 348 or for a cloud-based storage system 318. The container storage system 381 may also determine availability of one or more storage devices 356 or one or more storage systems. An aggregate amount of storage from one or more of storage device(s) 356, storage system(s), cloud-based storage system(s) 318, edge management services 366, cloud-based object storage 348, or any other storage resources, or any combination or sub-combination of such storage resources may be used to provide the storage pool 383. The storage pool 383 is used to provision storage for the one or more virtual volumes mounted on one or more of the nodes 390 within cluster 384.

In some implementations, the container storage system 381 may create multiple storage pools. For example, the container storage system 381 may aggregate storage resources of a same type into an individual storage pool. In this example, a storage type may be one of: a storage device 356, a storage array 102, a cloud-based storage system 318, storage via an edge management service 366, or a cloud-based object storage 348. Or it could be storage configured with a certain level or type of redundancy or distribution, such as a particular combination of striping, mirroring, or erasure coding.

The container storage system 381 may execute within the cluster 384 as a containerized container storage system service, where instances of containers that implement elements of the containerized container storage system service may operate on different nodes within the cluster 384. In this example, the containerized container storage system service may operate in conjunction with the container orchestration system of the container system 380 to handle storage operations, mount virtual volumes to provide storage to a node, aggregate available storage into a storage pool 383, provision storage for a virtual volume from a storage pool 383, generate backup data, replicate data between nodes, clusters, environments, among other storage system operations. In some examples, the containerized container storage system service may provide storage services across multiple clusters operating in distinct computing environments. For example, other storage system operations may include storage system operations described herein. Persistent storage provided by the containerized container storage system service may be used to implement stateful and/or resilient containerized applications.

The container storage system 381 may be configured to perform any suitable storage operations of a storage system. For example, the container storage system 381 may be configured to perform one or more of the illustrative storage management operations described herein to manage storage resources used by the container system.

In some embodiments, one or more storage operations, including one or more of the illustrative storage management operations described herein, may be containerized. For example, one or more storage operations may be implemented as one or more containerized applications configured to be executed to perform the storage operation(s). Such containerized storage operations may be executed in any suitable runtime environment to manage any storage system(s), including any of the illustrative storage systems described herein.

The storage systems described herein may support various forms of data replication. For example, two or more of the storage systems may synchronously replicate a dataset between each other. In synchronous replication, distinct copies of a particular dataset may be maintained by multiple storage systems, but all accesses (e.g., a read) of the dataset should yield consistent results regardless of which storage system the access was directed to. For example, a read directed to any of the storage systems that are synchronously replicating the dataset should return identical results. As such, while updates to the version of the dataset need not occur at exactly the same time, precautions must be taken to ensure consistent accesses to the dataset. For example, if an update (e.g., a write) that is directed to the dataset is received by a first storage system, the update may only be acknowledged as being completed if all storage systems that are synchronously replicating the dataset have applied the update to their copies of the dataset. In such an example, synchronous replication may be carried out through the use of I/O forwarding (e.g., a write received at a first storage system is forwarded to a second storage system), communications between the storage systems (e.g., each storage system indicating that it has completed the update), or in other ways.

In other embodiments, a dataset may be replicated through the use of checkpoints. In checkpoint-based replication (also referred to as ‘nearly synchronous replication’), a set of updates to a dataset (e.g., one or more write operations directed to the dataset) may occur between different checkpoints, such that a dataset has been updated to a specific checkpoint only if all updates to the dataset prior to the specific checkpoint have been completed. Consider an example in which a first storage system stores a live copy of a dataset that is being accessed by users of the dataset. In this example, assume that the dataset is being replicated from the first storage system to a second storage system using checkpoint-based replication. For example, the first storage system may send a first checkpoint (at time t=0) to the second storage system, followed by a first set of updates to the dataset, followed by a second checkpoint (at time t=1), followed by a second set of updates to the dataset, followed by a third checkpoint (at time t=2). In such an example, if the second storage system has performed all updates in the first set of updates but has not yet performed all updates in the second set of updates, the copy of the dataset that is stored on the second storage system may be up-to-date until the second checkpoint. Alternatively, if the second storage system has performed all updates in both the first set of updates and the second set of updates, the copy of the dataset that is stored on the second storage system may be up-to-date until the third checkpoint. Readers will appreciate that various types of checkpoints may be used (e.g., metadata only checkpoints), checkpoints may be spread out based on a variety of factors (e.g., time, number of operations, an RPO setting), and so on.

In other embodiments, a dataset may be replicated through snapshot-based replication (also referred to as ‘asynchronous replication’). In snapshot-based replication, snapshots of a dataset may be sent from a replication source such as a first storage system to a replication target such as a second storage system. In such an embodiment, each snapshot may include the entire dataset or a subset of the dataset such as, for example, only the portions of the dataset that have changed since the last snapshot was sent from the replication source to the replication target. Readers will appreciate that snapshots may be sent on-demand, based on a policy that takes a variety of factors into consideration (e.g., time, number of operations, an RPO setting), or in some other way.

The storage systems described above may, either alone or in combination, be configured to serve as a continuous data protection store. A continuous data protection store is a feature of a storage system that records updates to a dataset in such a way that consistent images of prior contents of the dataset can be accessed with a low time granularity (often on the order of seconds, or even less), and stretching back for a reasonable period of time (often hours or days). These allow access to very recent consistent points in time for the dataset, and also allow access to points in time for a dataset that might have just preceded some event that, for example, caused parts of the dataset to be corrupted or otherwise lost, while retaining close to the maximum number of updates that preceded that event. Conceptually, they are like a sequence of snapshots of a dataset taken very frequently and kept for a long period of time, though continuous data protection stores are often implemented quite differently from snapshots. A storage system implementing a data continuous data protection store may further provide a means of accessing these points in time, accessing one or more of these points in time as snapshots or as cloned copies, or reverting the dataset back to one of those recorded points in time.

Over time, to reduce overhead, some points in the time held in a continuous data protection store can be merged with other nearby points in time, essentially deleting some of these points in time from the store. This can reduce the capacity needed to store updates. It may also be possible to convert a limited number of these points in time into longer duration snapshots. For example, such a store might keep a low granularity sequence of points in time stretching back a few hours from the present, with some points in time merged or deleted to reduce overhead for up to an additional day. Stretching back in the past further than that, some of these points in time could be converted to snapshots representing consistent point-in-time images from only every few hours.

Although some embodiments are described largely in the context of a storage system, readers of skill in the art will recognize that embodiments of the present disclosure may also take the form of a computer program product disposed upon computer readable storage media for use with any suitable processing system. Such computer readable storage media may be any storage medium for machine-readable information, including magnetic media, optical media, solid-state media, or other suitable media. Examples of such media include magnetic disks in hard drives or diskettes, compact disks for optical drives, magnetic tape, and others as will occur to those of skill in the art. Persons skilled in the art will immediately recognize that any computer system having suitable programming means will be capable of executing the steps described herein as embodied in a computer program product. Persons skilled in the art will recognize also that, although some of the embodiments described in this specification are oriented to software installed and executing on computer hardware, nevertheless, alternative embodiments implemented as firmware or as hardware are well within the scope of the present disclosure.

In some examples, a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-readable instructions may be provided in accordance with the principles described herein. The instructions, when executed by a processor of a computing device, may direct the processor and/or computing device to perform one or more operations, including one or more of the operations described herein. Such instructions may be stored and/or transmitted using any of a variety of known computer-readable media.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium as referred to herein may include any non-transitory storage medium that participates in providing data (e.g., instructions) that may be read and/or executed by a computing device (e.g., by a processor of a computing device). For example, a non-transitory computer-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, any combination of non-volatile storage media and/or volatile storage media. Exemplary non-volatile storage media include, but are not limited to, read-only memory, flash memory, a solid-state drive, a magnetic storage device (e.g., a hard disk, a floppy disk, magnetic tape, etc.), ferroelectric random-access memory (“RAM”), and an optical disc (e.g., a compact disc, a digital video disc, a Blu-ray disc, etc.). Exemplary volatile storage media include, but are not limited to, RAM (e.g., dynamic RAM).

Referring to FIG. 4 , a generalized block diagram of one embodiment of a storage system 400 is shown. The storage system 400 may include storage controller 410 and storage devices 450A-N which are included within shelves 440 and 445. Storage controller 410 may implement a secret sharing algorithm to prevent unauthorized access to storage devices 450A-N. The logic, algorithms, and mechanisms described as being included within or implemented by storage controller 410 may comprise hardware and/or software.

In one embodiment, Shamir secret sharing may be used to protect the data in storage system 400. However, it is noted that other secret sharing schemes may be utilized in other embodiments. For example, in other embodiments, other secret sharing schemes, such as Blakley, Krawczyk, or the Chinese Remainder Theorem may be utilized. While the remainder of the description may be specific to Shamir secret sharing, it is to be understood this does not preclude the use of other secret sharing schemes.

Storage controller 410 may include a secret generation unit 415. In one embodiment, for a Shamir secret sharing scheme, unit 415 may be configured to generate a polynomial in the finite (Galois) field, or GF(2^(m)), space, wherein m is a positive integer. The polynomial may be generated, and master secret 420 may be one of the terms of the polynomial. It is noted that the terms “master secret” and “shared secret” may be used interchangeably throughout this disclosure. In one embodiment, a polynomial of the following format may be utilized: f(x)=A₀+A₁x+A₂x²+A₃x³+ . . . +A_(k-1)x^(k-1).

In one embodiment, the shared secret may be the value of the constant term ‘A₀’ of the polynomial f(x), and the constant term ‘A₀’ may be chosen randomly. In other embodiments, the secret may be one of the other terms (e.g., A₁, A₂) of the polynomial or a combination of two or more terms from the polynomial. The degree of the polynomial may determine the number of shares ‘k’ out of the total number of storage devices ‘n’ that will be needed to reconstruct the secret. For example, if the polynomial is a fourth degree polynomial, with the highest-order term being an X4 term, then the number of shares ‘k’ needed to reconstruct the secret will be five.

In one embodiment, share generation unit 425 may generate a number of shares ‘n’ equal to the number of storage devices in the storage system. Each share 435A-N generated by share generation unit 425 may be a pair of values, and the pair may be an input to the polynomial and result of the polynomial (x, f(x)). In one embodiment, each share may be generated by setting ‘x’ to an integer value. For example, ‘N’ shares may be constructed by setting ‘x’ to the integer values 1, 2, . . . , N and then computing a corresponding f(x) value. In another embodiment, extra shares may be generated and stored on one or more share servers. Also, in a further embodiment, a new share may be generated for a new drive that replaces a failed drive.

Each share 435A-N may be distributed to and stored on a corresponding storage device 450A-N. The storage devices 450A-N of storage system 400 are shown as being split up into two equal-sized shelves 440 and 445. However, in other embodiments, other numbers of shelves may be utilized in the storage system, and in addition, each shelf may vary in size. For example, in another embodiment, the storage devices 450A-N may be split up and stored within four shelves. Generally speaking, a “shelf” may refer to any physical grouping of storage devices into a single unit. In one embodiment, the required number of shares for reconstructing the master secret may be chosen such that the required number is greater than the number of storage devices in a shelf. In other words, the number of shares needed for reconstructing the master secret should be greater than any number of storage devices that are physically grouped together in a single location when that location may not be secure, as during physical transport.

Although secret generation unit 415, share generation unit 425, and key encryption unit 430 are shown as separate entities within storage controller 410, it will be understood that these may be combined into a single unit in other embodiments. It is also noted that storage controller 410 may include other components and logic not shown in FIG. 4 . Furthermore, in some embodiments, units 415, 425, and 430 may be software routines that are invoked from a program executing on one or more processors (not shown) of storage controller 410.

It should be understood that the distribution of functionality illustrated in FIG. 4 is shown for illustrative purposes, and other embodiments may have a different arrangement of functionality among the components. For example, in another embodiment, one or more of units 415, 425, and 430 may be located within shelf 440, shelf 445, any storage device 450A-N, or in another computing device. In some embodiments, if the logic for generating shares and secrets and/or encrypting keys is located within a shelf or storage device, then the shares, secrets, and/or encrypted keys may not be conveyed from the storage controller to the storage devices 450A-N as shown in FIG. 4 . Rather, the shares, secrets, and/or encrypted keys may be utilized locally at their respective storage device after they are generated.

In various embodiments, each of the storage devices 450A-N may utilize any of various types of data storage technology. For example, in one embodiment, one or more of the storage devices 450A-N may include storage consisting of solid-state memory to store persistent data. In other embodiments, one or more of the storage devices 450A-N may include storage using other technologies such as spin torque transfer technique, magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) technique, shingled disks, memristors, phase change memory, or other storage technologies. In one embodiment, the included solid-state memory may comprise Solid-State Drive (SSD) technology. It is noted that a Solid-State Drive (SSD) may also be referred to as a Solid-State Disk.

Each storage device 450A-N may generate and utilize a key for encrypting the data that is stored on the device. Each storage device 450A-N may include a hardware encryption mechanism that utilizes the key for encrypting the data stored on the device. Alternatively, the keys utilized by storage devices 450A-N may be generated by storage controller 410 or another unit. In one embodiment, to add an extra level of protection, hardware on the storage devices 450A-N may be configured to encrypt these keys. Each key may be encrypted independently and separately from the other keys by the hardware on each storage device 450A-N. Alternatively, in another embodiment, key encryption unit 430 of storage controller 410 may be configured to encrypt the keys. Furthermore, each key may be encrypted independently and separately from the data that is encrypted and stored on each storage device. The key for each storage device may be encrypted using both the master secret 420 and a second value specific to the corresponding storage device. For example, in one embodiment, the second value may be the serial number of the storage device. In another embodiment, the second value may be an identification (ID) or a portion of the ID stored in a header of the storage device. In other embodiments, the second value may be based on other information intrinsic to a given storage device. In further embodiments, multiple device-specific values may be utilized to encrypt the key. Also, in some embodiments, only master secret 420 may be used to encrypt the key.

It is also noted that in another embodiment, the same key may be utilized by two or more storage devices, and key encryption unit 430 may encrypt this key and convey the encrypted key to the storage devices that use the key. Alternatively, in a further embodiment, master secret 420 may be the key that is used to encrypt data on each storage device 450A-N. In this embodiment, each storage device 450A-N may store a share 435 and the encrypted data 470, along with any other device-specific data in header 460. To decrypt the data, the shares of a sufficient number of storage devices 450A-N may be used to reconstruct the master secret 420, then master secret 420 may be used to decrypt the encrypted keys 455A-N, and then the keys may be used to decrypt the encrypted data 470.

In one embodiment, a hash function may be utilized as part of the encryption process. The shared master secret 420 may be hashed with the serial number of a given storage device 450 to generate an intermediate value. Then, the value of the original key used to encrypt data on a given storage device 450 may be encrypted by the intermediate value. The output of this encryption stage may be the encrypted key 455 that is stored on the given storage device 450. Any type of hash function (e.g., MD5, SHA-1) may be utilized in various embodiments. In other embodiments, other encryption techniques may be used to generate encrypted key 455 using master secret 420 and a device-specific value.

In one embodiment, the generation of the shared master secret 420, shares 435A-N, and encrypted keys 455A-N may be performed during the configuration and installation of storage system 400. In addition, these values may be regenerated on a periodic basis to provide better security for storage system 400. For example, in one embodiment, secret generation unit 415 may generate a new master secret 420 on a daily basis. Then, unit 415 may generate new shares 435A-N from the new master secret 420 and distribute these to the storage devices 450A-N. Also, unit 430 may generate encrypted keys 455A-N from the new master secret 420 and distribute these encrypted keys 455A-N to their corresponding storage devices 450A-N.

In other embodiments, other schedules may be utilized to update the shared secret 420, shares 435A-N, and encrypted keys 455A-N. Also, in other embodiments, the steps utilized during the generation of the secrets and keys may vary, and other steps may be incorporated in the updating of the secret sharing scheme. For example, in another embodiment, instead of just re-encrypting the original key to produce a new encrypted key 455, the encrypted data on each storage device 450 may be decrypted and re-encrypted with a new key. Also, in a further embodiment, the original keys used for encrypting data stored on each of storage devices 450A-N may be generated by key generation unit 430 instead of being generated by each storage device.

Storage device 450N is expanded in FIG. 4 to show its separate data components. In one embodiment, storage device 450N may include a serial number 465N, share 435N, encrypted key 455N, and encrypted data 470N. Serial number 465N, share 435N, and encrypted key 455N may be part of header 460N. Alternatively, in another embodiment, encrypted key 455N may be stored on storage device 450N in an area inaccessible to the end user. In this embodiment, encrypted key 455N may only be accessible via an unlock command. Header 460N may also include other information not shown in FIG. 4 . It is noted that storage device 450N may be formatted differently in other embodiments. Additionally, storage device 450N may include logic (not shown) for performing encryption.

The format of storage device 450N as shown in FIG. 4 is a format of the data stored in non-volatile memory (e.g., solid state storage, disk drives, or any other suitable storage device). Although not shown in FIG. 4 , storage device 450N may also include volatile memory for storing a decrypted key with which reads and writes may be executed. Generally speaking, storage device 450N may use the decrypted key during the reading and writing of data to storage device 450N. When storage device 450N is powered up, there may be an initialization process to get storage device 450N into an operational state. This operational state may allow for the encrypted data 470N to be decrypted and also allow new data to be encrypted and written to storage device 450N. On power up, storage device 450N may retain encrypted key 455N, which is non-useable until it is decrypted to recreate the original key which was used to encrypt the data (encrypted data 470N) stored on device 450N. This process is described in more detail in relation to FIG. 2 .

Share 435N may be generated by share generation unit 425. The generation of share 435N may be performed independently and separately from the encryption of the actual data (encrypted data 470N). In other words, user data stored on the storage device 450N is not used in the generation of share 435N. In one embodiment, share 435N may be an input to a polynomial and a result of the polynomial for that particular input. In some embodiments, share 435N may also include additional information. For example, in one embodiment, share 435N may include the value of ‘k’, which indicates the number of shares that are required to reconstruct shared secret 420.

In one embodiment, the data stored on the storage device may be encrypted with a key unique to the storage device. The encrypted data of storage device 450N is represented by encrypted data 470N. To implement the secret sharing scheme, the key, along with another value specific to the storage device, may be conveyed from each storage device 450 to key encryption unit 430. For example, in one embodiment, storage controller 410 may receive a key and serial number 465N from each storage device 450. The key, serial number 465N, and master secret 420 may be utilized by key encryption unit 430 to generate an encrypted key 455 for the specific storage device 450. In another embodiment, each storage device may be configured to encrypt its respective key locally, and therefore the result of combining master secret 420 with serial number 465N may be conveyed to each storage device in this embodiment. Further variations in the locations and methods of encrypting the keys are possible and are contemplated.

Referring now to FIG. 5 , a block diagram of another embodiment of a storage system 500 is shown. Storage system 500 includes storage controller 505, and the actual logic used to implement the units shown in storage controller 505 may vary depending on the embodiment. In various embodiments, storage controller 505 may be implemented using hardware, software, or a combination thereof. For example, in one embodiment, units 510 and 520 may represent software that is executed by one or more processors (not shown) of storage controller 505. Furthermore, the logic shown in storage controller 505 may be located within shelves 540 and 545 or storage devices 550A-N in other embodiments.

Storage controller 505 may be coupled to shelves 540 and 545 which include storage devices 550A-N. Storage device 550N is expanded in FIG. 5 to show header 555N and encrypted data 575N. Header 555N may include serial number 560N, share 565N, and encrypted key 570N. Storage controller 505 may also be coupled to random-access memory (RAM) 530.

Storage controller 505 may include master secret reconstruction unit 510. Unit 510 may be configured to receive shares from storage devices 550A-N. As long as enough storage devices are present and accessible, unit 510 may reconstruct master secret 515 from the shares obtained from these storage devices. After master secret 515 has been reconstructed from a sufficient number of shares, then key decryption unit 520 may access and use master secret 515 for decrypting encrypted keys. These operations of reconstructing master secret 515 and decrypting the encrypted keys 570 may be performed a single time on boot up of the storage system 500. After the encrypted keys 570 have been decrypted, they may be stored in a volatile memory (RAM 530) and used multiple times for accesses to storage devices 550A-N. It is noted that this is an advantageous feature of storage system 500 which allows for master secret 515 to be reconstructed and encrypted keys 570 to be decrypted a single time and then reused multiple times.

Key decryption unit 520 may be configured to decrypt the encrypted keys of storage devices 550A-N. Unit 520 may receive encrypted keys and serial numbers from each of the storage devices 550A-N. Unit 520 may use master secret 515 and the serial number from a specific storage device to reverse the encryption process that was used to encrypt the key. Keys 525 are representative of decrypted keys that may be used to decrypt the encrypted data 575 that is stored on the storage device 550A-N. Each storage device 550A-N may have a separate key that is used to encrypt the data stored on the individual device.

Keys 525 may be stored in a variety of locations, depending on the embodiment. Although keys 525 are shown as being stored in storage controller 505, in another embodiment, keys 525 may be stored in RAM 530. In addition, although RAM 530 is shown as a separate unit from storage controller 505, in another embodiment, RAM 530 may be included within storage controller 505.

RAM 530 may be any type of volatile memory such that when RAM 530 is powered down, the keys will not be saved. This helps to prevent an unauthorized user from accessing the keys after they have been decrypted. Each storage device 550A-N may retrieve a corresponding key from RAM 530 and use this key to encrypt and decrypt data during reads and writes from the storage device. Alternatively, each storage device 550A-N may include a portion of volatile memory, and a key may be stored in this volatile memory on the corresponding storage device. Other possibilities of locations for storing the decrypted keys are possible and are contemplated. In one embodiment, the key decryption process may take place entirely on each storage device 550A-N. In this embodiment, storage controller 505 may provide the key used to decrypt the per-device encrypted key 570.

In various embodiments, one or more of the storage devices 550A-N may fail during operation of the overall storage system 500. In response to such a failure, storage controller 505 may be configured to generate a new share for a new storage device that replaces a failed storage device. As part of the process of generating a new share, storage controller 505 may gather sufficient shares to recover the master secret. For example, in one embodiment, when master secret 515 is derived from a polynomial, the required number of shares may be used to solve for all of the coefficients of the polynomial. Then, the polynomial may be evaluated at a different point to generate a new share for the new storage device. For other types of secret sharing schemes, appropriate processes may be utilized to generate a new share for a new storage device that replaces a failed storage device. In another embodiment, storage controller 505 may be configured to generate a new master secret whenever membership changes, such as when an existing storage device fails or when a new storage device is added to the system. Then, the new master secret may be used to refresh encrypted keys and shares on all of the storage devices.

In other embodiments, storage controller 505 may also include many other units and other logic for performing other tasks. For example, storage controller 505 may also include other logic not shown in FIG. 5 , such as the logic shown in storage controller 110 of FIG. 4 .

Turning now to FIG. 6 , a block diagram of one embodiment of a distributed system is shown. System 600 includes two share servers 605 and 610 which may be utilized by various storage controllers to facilitate access to a small number of storage devices when this small number of devices is not sufficient to reconstruct the master secret. Other systems in other embodiments may have other numbers of local or remote share servers. It is noted that servers 605 and 610 are representative of any number and type of network devices that may be configured to store various numbers of shares.

As shown in FIG. 6 , system 600 includes a remote share server 605 and a local share server 610. Storage controller 615 may be coupled to remote share server 605 via network 620, and storage controller 615 may also be coupled to local share server 610. Network 620 may be any type of network, including a wireless connection, direct local area network (LAN) connection, wide area network (WAN) connection such as the Internet, a router, storage area network, Ethernet, and others. In one embodiment, storage controller 615 may be part of a server or computing device, and storage controller 615 may include hardware (e.g., circuitry, dedicated logic, programmable logic, microcode), software (e.g., executable program instructions), or a combination thereof.

Storage controller 615 may be coupled to storage devices 625A-N, which are representative of any number and type (e.g., flash-based memory, solid state drive (SSD), disk) of storage devices. The data stored on each of storage devices 625A-N may be encrypted with a device-specific key, and then each device-specific key may be encrypted using a master key and secret sharing scheme as discussed above. As a result, the data stored on any of the storage devices 625A-N may be decrypted only if enough of the shares are available to reconstruct the shared (master) secret. In the embodiment shown in system 600, remote share server 605 and local share server 610 may each have a number of shares equal to (N/2)+2. For this example, the number of shares needed to reconstruct the secret may be assumed to be (N/2)+6. Therefore, if storage controller 615 is connected to only a single storage device 625 but has access to either share server, then storage controller 615 may be able to access the data on the single storage device 625.

In other embodiments, the number of shares stored on each share server may vary. Also, the number of shares needed to reconstruct the shared secret may vary from embodiment to embodiment. System 600 may be organized in a variety of different manners in other embodiments, such that storage controller 615 if has access to one share server, then storage controller 615 may need shares from different threshold numbers of storage devices depending on the embodiment. For example, in another embodiment, the number of shares needed to reconstruct the shared secret may be N/2. Each share server may include (N/2)−6 shares, such that storage controller 615 may need to access three separate storage devices and their shares to reconstruct the shared secret. Other variations of number of shares needed to reconstruct the secret and number of shares per share server are possible in other embodiments.

The advantages of the arrangement shown in FIG. 6 are that storage controller 615 may be able to access the data on a single storage device 625 by also connecting to either share server. For example, if storage controller 615 was only coupled to a single storage device 625, or if only one storage device 625 was accessible or operational, then storage controller 615 would still be able to access the data on this single storage device 625 with the arrangement of system 600.

It is noted that in other embodiments, storage devices 625A-N may store more than a single share per device. Storage controller 615 may generate multiple shares per storage device and then each storage device 625A-N may store one or more shares. This scheme may also apply to the storage controllers and storage devices shown in FIGS. 4 and 5 . The number of shares needed to reconstruct the master secret may be adjusted accordingly such that the minimum number of shares needed to reconstruct the master key is greater than the number of shares stored on any group of storage devices located in a single physical location. In addition, the number of shares needed to reconstruct the master key may also be greater than the number of shares stored in any group of storage devices that may be shipped together in a single shipment. In this manner, should a particular group of devices (e.g., a shelf) be lost in transit, an insufficient number of shares will be present to recover the master key and access the data on the lost group of devices.

Referring now to FIG. 7 , a block diagram of one embodiment of a distributed system 700 of storage devices is shown. System 700 may implement a secret sharing scheme for a set of distributed storage devices. In other words, the storage devices that utilize the secret sharing scheme do not have to be located at a single location. The type of scheme described in FIG. 7 is the same type of scheme described earlier in regard to FIG. 1 . However, in FIG. 7 , the storage devices are connected across a network, while in FIG. 1 , the storage devices are located in a single location.

Storage controller 715 may be directly coupled to storage device 705C, which is representative of any number of storage devices. Storage devices 705A-N may be located in multiple locations, and storage controller 715 may be coupled to storage devices 705A-N via network 710. Network 710 is representative of any type and number of networks.

In one embodiment, storage devices 705A-N may utilize a secret sharing scheme similar to the scheme described in regard to FIG. 1 to prevent unauthorized access to the data stored on storage devices 705A-N. Therefore, storage controller 715 may be unable to read the data on any of the storage devices 705A-N unless at least a number of accessible storage devices 705A-N is above a threshold. In effect, the multiple storage devices 705A-N may be unified by the secret sharing scheme. Any single storage device 705 by itself may not have any readable data, but if a sufficient number of the storage devices 705A-N are available to storage controller 715, then storage controller 715 may access the data on any available storage device without needing a password or other security device. Also, it is noted that once the master secret is reconstructed and individual keys are decrypted, multiple accesses to the storage devices 705A-N may be performed without having to reconstruct the master secret before each access. This is in contrast to other schemes which require the master secret to be reconstructed and the key decrypted each time an access to a storage device 705A-N is made.

Turning now to FIG. 8 , one embodiment of a method for unifying a group of storage devices is shown. For purposes of discussion, the steps in this embodiment are shown in sequential order. It should be noted that in various embodiments of the method described below, one or more of the elements described may be performed concurrently, in a different order than shown, or may be omitted entirely. Other additional elements may also be performed as desired.

In one embodiment, method 800 may begin with each storage device of the group of storage devices generating a key (block 805). In one embodiment, each storage device may generate the key independently of the other storage devices, and the key may be a randomly generated number. Also, in one embodiment, each storage device may perform the key generation without any input or control from a storage controller or central management unit. The key may be used by each storage device to encrypt data as data is written to the storage device. Each storage device may include hardware configured to use the key to encrypt data. The key may also be used to decrypt data as data is read from the storage device. In another embodiment, keys may be generated elsewhere (e.g., storage controller) and conveyed to each storage device.

Next, a storage controller may retrieve the key and another value from each storage device (block 810). The other value may be any value that is unique to the specific storage device. For example, in one embodiment, the other value may be a serial number of the storage device. The storage controller may be any type of centralized management unit configured to manage the group of storage devices and/or control access to the group of storage devices. In various embodiments, the storage controller may comprise hardware and/or software. For example, in one embodiment, the storage controller may be software executing on one or more processors of a computing device.

The storage controller may generate a single master secret for the entire group and a share for each storage device (block 815). It is noted that in some embodiments, the storage controller may generate a master secret and shares for each storage device prior to retrieving the random key and other value from each storage device. The storage controller may utilize any of a variety of secret sharing schemes to generate the master secret and shares. For example, in one embodiment, the storage controller may utilize Shamir's secret sharing scheme to generate the master secret and the individual shares.

For each storage device, the storage controller may utilize the master secret and the other value to encrypt the storage device's key (block 820). In one embodiment, the second value may be a serial number of the storage device. In one embodiment, the master secret and the serial number may be hashed together and then this value may be used to encrypt the storage device's key. In other embodiments, other encryption schemes may be used to encrypt the key based on the master secret and the device-specific value. Then, the storage controller may convey a corresponding encrypted key and a share to each storage device in the group of storage devices (block 825). The share and the encrypted key may be stored on the storage device (block 830). In one embodiment, the share may be stored in the header of the storage device while the encrypted key may be stored on the storage device in an area inaccessible to the end user. In this embodiment, the encrypted key may only be accessible via an unlock command. After block 830, method 800 may end.

After each of the storage devices have received and stored the share and encrypted key on the device, the storage devices in effect have been unified. The data on any single storage device is unreadable if the other storage devices are inaccessible. Only if a threshold number of storage devices are available will the data on any of the storage devices be able to be decrypted and read.

Turning now to FIG. 9 , one embodiment of a method for decrypting data in a storage system using a secret sharing scheme is shown. For purposes of discussion, the steps in this embodiment are shown in sequential order. It should be noted that in various embodiments of the method described below, one or more of the elements described may be performed concurrently, in a different order than shown, or may be omitted entirely. Other additional elements may also be performed as desired.

The method 900 may begin by retrieving shares from at least a threshold number of storage devices of the storage system (block 905). The value of the threshold may be determined by the manner in which the master secret was generated. For example, in one embodiment, the master secret may be based on a polynomial, and the threshold may be equal to one more than the degree of the polynomial. In one embodiment, the threshold may be chosen so that it is larger than half the number of storage devices. Next, the master secret may be reconstructed from the retrieved shares (block 910). In one embodiment, polynomial interpolation may be utilized to reconstruct the master secret. More specifically, Lagrange basis polynomials may be computed from the shares as part of the interpolation process used to reconstruct the master secret.

After block 910, the encrypted keys of the storage devices of the storage system may be decrypted using the master secret (block 915). For a given storage device, decrypting the encrypted key may also require a value specific to the given storage device. In one embodiment, this device-specific value may be a serial number of the given storage device. In other embodiments, the device-specific value may be a different attribute of the given storage device (or value otherwise associated with the storage device), such as some piece of data stored in the storage device header. In a further embodiment, the device-specific value may be based on a combination of values, such as a device ID, one or more values stored in the header of the device, and any other suitable value.

After block 915, the decrypted keys may be used for decrypting data on the storage devices of the storage system (block 920). The decrypted keys may also be used for encrypting data that is written to the storage devices. The decrypted keys may be stored in volatile memory such that when the system is powered down, the decrypted keys may be lost. On a reboot, the system may go through method 900 again to decrypt the encrypted keys of the storage devices in the storage system.

Referring now to FIG. 10 , a block diagram of one embodiment of the generation of an encrypted key and a share is shown. The block diagram illustrates the generation of an encrypted key and share for each storage device (not shown) of an overall storage system (not shown). Device-specific key 1005 is representative of a key that is used to encrypt data stored on a specific storage device. Device-specific value 1010 is representative of any value or combination of values unique to the specific storage device. Master secret 1015 is representative of the shared secret in a secret sharing scheme.

Device-specific value 1010 and master secret 1015 may be input to hashing stage 1020, and a hashed value may be generated from these two inputs. Hashing stage 1020 may utilize any type of hash function to hash together value 1010 and master secret 1015. The output from hashing stage 1020 may be coupled as an input to encryption stage 1025. Key 1005 may also be coupled as an input to encryption stage 1025, and encryption stage 1025 may use the output of hashing stage 1020 to encrypt the original key 1005. The output of encryption stage 1025 may be encrypted key 1035. Encryption stage 1025 may utilize any suitable type of encryption to generate encrypted key 1035.

Share generator 1030 may be configured to generate a share 1040 from master secret 1015. In some embodiments, share generator 1030 may be configured to generate multiple shares 1040 for a single storage device. In one embodiment, share generator 1030 may generate a point on a polynomial, and this point may be a share 1040. In other embodiments, share 1040 may be generated utilizing other techniques. The diagram illustrated in FIG. 10 illustrates the operations that may be performed for a single storage device. For a storage system with a plurality of storage devices, these operations may be repeated for each storage device in the system. An encrypted key 1035 and share 1040 may be generated for each storage device, and then both the encrypted key 1035 and share 1040 may be stored on their corresponding storage device. A separate key 1005 and separate device-specific value 1010 may be utilized for each separate storage device, but the same master secret 1015 may be utilized for all of the storage devices in the system.

It is to be understood that FIG. 10 merely illustrates one possible embodiment of the generation of a share and encrypted key for a storage device. In other embodiments, other suitable mechanisms or methods for generating shares and encrypted keys may be utilized.

In some example storage systems, a quorum of storage devices may be required to boot the storage system. In such systems, the number of devices required to form a quorum for boot may be different than the number of shares required to reconstruct a master secret. In this way, a system may be able to boot, having the required number of storage devices to form a quorum, but not be able to reconstruct the master secret, having less than the required number of shares to do so. To that end, FIG. 11 sets forth a flow chart illustrating an example method of quorum-aware secret sharing according to some embodiments of the present disclosure.

In the example of FIG. 11 , a storage system (1100) includes a plurality of storage devices (1110, 1112) and a controller (1108). Readers will recognize that although only two storage devices are shown for purposes of simplicity, a storage system configured according to embodiments of the present disclosure may include many more such devices. In fact, storage devices may be configured into ‘write groups.’ A write group as the term is used in this specification refers to a logical collection of storage devices. A storage system may include any number of write groups and each write group may include any number of storage devices.

The method of FIG. 11 includes encrypting (1102) a device key (1108, 1120) for each storage device (1110, 1112) using a master secret. Such encryption may be carried out as described above with respect to the previous figures. Readers of skill will recognize that each device key need not be unique. In fact, in some systems a single device key may be used for every storage device in the write group.

The method of FIG. 11 also includes generating (1104) a plurality of shares (1114, 1116) from the master secret. Such generation of the shares in a system configured quorum-aware secret sharing according to embodiments of the present disclosure may be carried out such that a minimum number of storage devices required from each write group for a quorum to boot the storage system is not less than a minimum number of shares required to reconstruct the master secret. Consider, as one example, that the minimum number of storage devices required from each write group for the quorum to boot the storage system is the number of storage devices in each write group less a first number of possible failed devices. More specifically, consider that the number of write groups is ‘G,’ the number of devices in each write group is ‘N,’ and the first number of possible failed devices is two. In such an example the number of devices from each write group required for a quorum to boot is N−2.

Continuing with the above example, generating (1104) the plurality of shares from the master secret may be carried out by first splitting the master secret into a number of intermediate shares equivalent to the number of write groups. That is, the master secret may be split into G intermediate shares. Next, the intermediate shares may be split into a number of shares equivalent to a number of storage devices in each write group. At a high level, the system performs a multi-level splitting of the master secret. Each of the G intermediate shares may be split into N shares. Reconstruction of the master secret may require each of the intermediate shares and reconstruction of each of the intermediate shares may require, for each write group, a number of shares equivalent to the number of storage devices in the write group less a second number of possible failed devices. Consider as just one example that the second number of possible failed devices may be four. In such an embodiment then, the number of shares required to reconstruct the master secret is N−4 for each of the G write groups. The number of shares required for a quorum is N−2 for each of the G write groups. When, for example, there are 4 write groups, each with 10 storage devices, the number of devices required in each write group for a quorum to boot is 8 and the number of shares required in each write group for master secret reconstruction is 6. In this way, if a system is able to form a quorum for boot, the system is also able to reconstruct the master secret.

Once the shares are generated, the method of FIG. 11 continues by storing (1106) the encrypted device keys (1118, 1120) and the plurality of shares (1114, 1116) in the storage devices.

The data stored on each storage device is encrypted with the device key. While the storage devices are in transit from one location to another, the data on the drive that is encrypted by the device key may remain safe from being decrypted by an unauthorized party as long as the unauthorized party does not gain physical access to the number of storage devices required to reconstruct the master secret. One manner in which to secure the data while in transit is to ship at least one full write group, separately from all others. As each of the intermediate shares may be required to reconstruct the master secret, lack of any single write group prohibits reconstruction. Another manner in which the data may be secured during transit is to ship any one or more write group without the required number of storage devices required to reconstruct the intermediate share. Consider in an example where N−4 storage devices are required to reconstruct the intermediate share for the write group, a user may remove from a write group, 5 or more devices (with write groups greater than 8 in size) and ship those 5 separately from the remainder of the write group. In this way, physical access to either the 5 removed from the write group or the remaining devices in the write group would not enable reconstruction of the master secret. In fact, in a storage system with only a single write group, transportation in a secure manner must be carried out by shipping less than the number of storage devices required to reconstruct the master secret rather than by shipping write groups separately. In write groups of size 8, ensuring that no more than N−4 storage devices of each write group are shipped in any single batch will ensure that possession of any single batch of devices does not enable reconstruction of the master secret.

In embodiments in which the storage system includes only write groups of size 7 or less, the number of shares from a write group required to reconstruct an intermediate share cannot be N−4 and maintain a simple majority requirement for master secret reconstruction. To that end, the system may be configured such that the second number of possible failed devices utilized for master secret reconstruction may be a number less than half of the number of storage devices in each write group. For example, in an embodiment in which a write group includes 7, the number of shares required for reconstruction of the intermediate share from that write group may be equivalent to N−3, where 3 is a number of possible failed devices that is less than half the number of the devices in the write group (N=7). In such an embodiment, the controller may be configured to notify a user to increase the number of devices in the write group.

Readers will recognize that each of the example embodiments listed in the previous figures for encrypting the device key, reconstructing the master secret, detecting a failed storage device and generating a new master secret may be carried out in the system depicted in FIG. 11 .

Some embodiments can include methods for migrating data in a storage array that includes a plurality of storage devices. These embodiments can include detecting, by the storage array, an occurrence of a storage device evacuation event associated with one or more source storage devices. A storage device evacuation event may indicate that the one or more source storage devices should no longer be written to as the one or more source storage devices will ultimately be removed from the storage array. Before the one or more source storage devices are removed from the storage array, however, valid data on the one or more source storage devices should be relocated to other storage devices in the storage array. The storage device evacuation event may be embodied, for example, as an event that is generated in response to a system administrator or other administrative entity indicating that the one or more source storage devices are designated for removal from the storage array. The system administrator or other administrative entity may indicate that the one or more source storage devices are designated for removal from the storage array, for example, through the use of a special purpose user interface (e.g., a GUI presented on a display screen) that presents an inventory of the storage devices that are included in the storage array and that also allowed the user of the special purpose user interface to select one or more source storage devices that are to be designated for removal from the storage array.

Detecting an occurrence of a storage device evacuation event associated with one or more source storage devices may be carried out by a special purpose module of computer program instructions that is executing on computer hardware within the storage array. Such a special purpose module of computer program instructions may be a standalone module or may be included within a larger module such as, for example, the array operating environment. Such a special purpose module of computer program instructions may be executing, for example, on one or more computer processors within an array management server, on one or more computer processors within a storage array controller that is similar to the storage array controllers described above, or on other computer hardware within the storage array.

Readers will appreciate that one or more source storage devices may be designated for removal from the storage array for a variety of reasons. For example, the more source storage devices may be relatively old storage devices that have a smaller storage capacity than relatively new storage devices that may be available as replacements for the relatively old storage devices. Alternatively, the more source storage devices may be relatively old storage devices that have higher access latencies and can't perform as many IOPS as relatively new storage devices that may be available as replacements for the relatively old storage devices. The one or more source storage devices may therefore be designated for removal from the storage array as part of an upgrade to the storage array. Readers will appreciate that the one or more source storage devices may be designated for removal from the storage array for other reasons, and readers will further appreciate that the one or more source storage devices may be designated for removal from the storage array in spite of the fact that the one or more source storage devices may still be properly functioning with no indication that a failure of the one or more source storage devices is imminent.

Embodiments can also include identifying, by the storage array in dependence upon one or more selection rules, one or more target storage devices for receiving data stored on the one or more source storage devices. Identifying one or more target storage devices for receiving data stored on the one or more source storage devices may be carried out by a special purpose module of computer program instructions that is executing on computer hardware within the storage array. Such a special purpose module of computer program instructions may be a standalone module or may be included within a larger module such as, for example, the array operating environment. Such a special purpose module of computer program instructions may be executing, for example, on one or more computer processors within an array management server, on one or more computer processors within a storage array controller that is similar to the storage array controllers described above, or on other computer hardware within the storage array.

The one or more target storage devices for receiving data stored on the one or more source storage devices are identified in dependence upon one or more selection rules. The one or more selection rules may include criteria for determining which storage devices in the storage array should be selected as the target storage devices that will ultimately store data that is presently stored on the storage devices that are to be evacuated from the storage array. The selection rules may specify, for example, that storage devices in the same enclosure as the one or more source storage devices should be identified as the target storage devices, that storage devices that are of the same type as the one or more source storage devices should be identified as the target storage devices, that storage devices that have the largest amount of available capacity should be identified as the target storage devices, that storage devices that have been most recently inserted into the storage array should be identified as the target storage devices, that storage devices that have the lowest amount of wear should be identified as the target storage devices, and so on. The one or more selection rules may therefore be utilized to intelligently determine which storage devices in the storage array should be selected as the one or more target storage devices.

Identifying one or more target storage devices for receiving data stored on the one or more source storage devices is carried out in response to detecting the occurrence of the storage device evacuation event. Upon detecting the occurrence of the storage device evacuation event, the storage array may identify the one or more target storage devices for receiving data stored on the one or more source storage devices by applying the one or more selection rules.

Embodiments can also include reducing, by the storage array, write access to the one or more source storage devices. Reducing write access to the one or more source storage devices may be carried out, for example, by preventing any additional data from being written to the one or more source storage devices, by limiting the number of write accesses that may be directed to the one or more source storage devices to a predetermined value, and so on. Readers will appreciate that by reducing write access to the one or more source storage devices, the storage array may continue to read data from the one or more source storage devices, but new data may not be written to the source storage devices given that the new data will subsequently be migrated away from the source storage devices in anticipation of removing the source storage devices from the storage array.

Reducing write access to the one or more source storage devices can include blocking all write access to the one or more source storage devices. Blocking all write access to the one or more source storage devices may be carried out, for example, by each of the storage array controllers in the storage array ceasing to issue write operations to the one or more source storage devices. In such an example, each storage array controller may maintain a list or other data structure that identifies all storage devices in the storage array that should not be utilized to service write operations. Because the storage array controller is responsible for directing all access requests to the storage devices in the storage array, the storage array controller may ultimately enforce a policy to block all write access to the one or more source storage devices.

Reducing write access to the one or more source storage devices can alternatively include enabling read-only access to the one or more source storage devices. Enabling read-only access to the one or more source storage devices may be carried out, for example, by each of the storage array controllers in the storage array ceasing to issue write operations to the one or more source storage devices while also still allowing for read operations to be directed to the one or more source storage devices. In such an example, each storage array controller may maintain a list or other form of data repository that identifies all storage devices in the storage array and associates access privileges (e.g., read-only, read-write) with each of the storage devices in the storage array. Because the storage array controller is responsible for directing all access requests to the storage devices in the storage array, the storage array controller may ultimately enforce a policy to enable read-only access to the one or more source storage devices.

Readers will appreciate that in the examples described above, where write access to the one or more source storage devices is reduced, the presence of deduplicated data on the one or more source storage devices may be treated as a special case. Data deduplication is a data compression technique whereby duplicate copies of repeating data are eliminated. Through the use of data deduplication techniques, a unique chunk of data (e.g., the master copy) may be stored once in the storage array and all additional occurrences of the chunk of data are replaced with a small reference that points to the stored chunk. The deduplicated data on the one or more source storage devices may therefore be embodied, for example, as a piece of data that is stored on the one or more source storage devices, where the piece of data is pointed to by other occurrences of identical data in the storage array. The presence of deduplicated data on the one or more source storage devices may be handled, for example, by allowing read-write access to the deduplicated data while enabling read-only access to (or blocking write access to) the remaining portions of the source storage devices (e.g., those portions that do not contain deduplicated data). Alternatively, the deduplicated data may be migrated to another storage device in the storage array and all references to the deduplicated data may be updated to point to the new location where the deduplicated data is stored.

Reducing write access to the one or more source storage devices may be carried out through the use of a special purpose module of computer program instructions that is executing on computer hardware within the storage array. Such a special purpose module of computer program instructions may be a standalone module or may be included within a larger module such as, for example, the array operating environment described above. Such a special purpose module of computer program instructions may be executing, for example, on one or more computer processors within an array management server, on one or more computer processors within a storage array controller that is similar to the storage array controllers described above, or on other computer hardware within the storage array. In such an example, the special purpose module of computer program instructions that is executing on computer hardware within the storage array may be configured to notify each of the storage array controllers in the storage array that write access to the one or more source storage devices has been reduced, so that the storage array controllers in the storage array may cease (or limit) issuing write requests to the one or more source storage devices.

Readers will appreciate that reducing write access to the one or more source storage devices does not mean that the storage device has failed. In fact, write access is reduced to the one or more source storage devices as part of a process of upgrading the storage array before the source storage devices fail. Reducing write access to the one or more source storage devices is therefore the result of enforcing a policy to limit the amount of data that is written to a storage device that will ultimately be removed from the storage array rather than the natural consequence of a storage device failing.

Embodiments can also include migrating, in dependence upon one or more migration rules, the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices. Migrating the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices may be carried out, for example, by writing the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices. In such an example, once all valid data on the one or more source storage devices has been migrated to the one or more target storage devices, the one or more source storage devices may be safely removed from the storage array. Once all of the valid data on the one or more source storage devices has been migrated to the one or more target storage devices, the source storage devices may no longer considered part of quorum of storage devices. In fact, any storage devices that are inserted in place of the source storage devices must be explicitly added through an enumeration process that may be carried out, for example, by an array operating environment that is executing on a particular storage array controller within the storage array. Such an enumeration process can be carried out by detecting the insertion of a device into the storage array, identifying that the inserted device is a storage device, and initializing the required routines or drivers that enable the storage devices to function. In such an example, detecting the insertion of a device into the storage array may be carried out through the use of software detection mechanisms or hardware components (e.g., presence detect lines) that detect the physical presence of a device and signal the storage array controller when a device is inserted or removed from the storage array. Identifying that the inserted device is a storage device may be carried out, for example, by the storage array controller receiving information such as vital product data (‘VPD’) for the inserted device, where such VPD can be utilized by the array operating environment to identify the device. Once the device has been identified, the array operating environment may initialize drivers and routines necessary to access and utilize the device.

Readers will appreciate that if there is not sufficient space on the one or more target storage devices to store the data that is stored on the one or more source storage devices, migration of the data may be aborted and the storage array may be rolled back to its state prior to the occurrence of the storage device evacuation event. In such an example, an array operating environment executing on a storage array controller may determine that insufficient space exists on the one or more target storage devices if storing the data on the one or more target storage devices would cause the capacity utilization of the storage array to exceed a predetermined threshold.

Readers will appreciate that in some embodiments, only the valid data that is stored on the one or more source storage devices will be migrated to the one or more target storage devices, as invalid data does not need to be retained by migrating such invalid data to the one or more target storage devices. Consider an example in which a particular piece of data was stored at a first location within a source storage device. In such an example, assume that a request to modify the particular piece of data was subsequently received. In view of the fact that the source storage device may be embodied as an SSD, modifying the particular piece of data cannot be accomplished by simply overwriting the data as would occur in a hard disk drive. Instead, the modified version of the particular piece of data would be written to a second location (which may or may not be on the same storage device) and the particular piece of data that was stored at the first location within the source storage device would be marked as being invalid. As such, the source storage device may include some invalid data that has not yet been garbage collected, and such invalid data does not need to be retained by migrating the invalid data to the one or more target storage devices.

Readers will appreciate that migrating the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices can include copying, from the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices, the data stored on the one or more source storage devices. Copying the data stored on the one or more source storage devices from the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices may be carried out, for example, by a storage array controller or other entity reading the data stored on the one or more source storage devices and the storage array controller or other entity writing such data to the one or more target storage devices. In alternative embodiment, the storage array controller or even the drives themselves may be configured to support a copy operation that takes an identification of a source and an identification of a target as operands. In such an example, the operands may be specified as a range of physical addresses, a range of virtual addresses, a base address and an indication of the size of the data that is to be copied, an identification of a logical grouping of data such as a volume, and so on.

In an alternative embodiment, migrating the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices can include initiating a garbage collection process on the one or more source storage devices. A garbage collection process may be embodied, for example, as a module of computer program instructions executing on computer hardware such as a computer processor or a microcontroller. The garbage collection process may be configured to reclaim memory that is occupied by data that is no longer in use. As described above, data that is no longer in use may be referred to herein as invalid data whereas data that is still in use may be referred to herein as valid data.

The garbage collection process may identify valid data on the one or more source storage devices and the garbage collection process can also identify invalid data on the one or more source storage devices. The garbage collection process may identify valid data on the one or more source storage devices and the garbage collection process can also identify invalid data on the one or more source storage devices, for example, by reading metadata that is associated with data stored in the storage array. Such metadata can include information that can be used to determine whether a particular piece of data is valid or invalid. The metadata may include such information as the result of steps carried out by the storage array controller or the storage devices themselves when data is written to the storage devices.

Consider an example in which the storage devices are embodied as SSDs where data is written to the SSDs in 16 KB pages. Attached to each page in the SSD may be a small amount (e.g., 8 Bytes) of additional memory that is used to store metadata associated with the page. The SSDs may be configured to receive requests to write data from the storage array controller, where the requests to write data include a virtual address that the SSD subsequently translates into a physical address. In such an example, the virtual-to-physical address translations may be stored by the SSD in a translation table that is maintained by the SSD. When the SSD receives a request to write data to a particular virtual address, the SSD may write the data to a first page that is associated with a first physical address and the SSD may also set a predetermined bit in the small amount of additional memory that is used to store metadata associated with the first page to a value indicating that the data contained therein is valid. If the SSD subsequently receives a second request to write data to the particular virtual address, the SSD may write the data to a second page that is described by a second physical address and also set a predetermined bit in the small amount of additional memory that is used to store metadata associated with the second page to a value indicating that the data contained therein is valid. In addition, the SSD may set the predetermined bit in the small amount of additional memory that is used to store metadata associated with the first page to a value indicating that the data contained therein is invalid, while also updating the translation table to map the particular virtual address to the second physical address. In such a way, the garbage collection process may scan the metadata associated with each page to determine whether the contents of each page are valid or invalid. Readers will appreciate that in other embodiments, metadata that is associated with data stored in the storage array may be stored and maintained in other ways.

Migrating the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices can also include writing the valid data identified by the garbage collection process to the one or more target storage devices. Writing the valid data identified by the garbage collection process to the one or more target storage devices may be carried out, for example, by a storage array controller issuing one or more instructions to write the valid data identified by the garbage collection process to the one or more target storage devices. In such an example, writing the valid data identified by the garbage collection process to the one or more target storage devices may even be part of the garbage collection process as the garbage collection process can communicate with other modules on a storage array to facilitate writing the valid data identified by the garbage collection process to the one or more target storage devices.

In some embodiments the data that is stored on the one or more source storage devices is migrated to the one or more target storage devices in dependence upon one or more migration rules. The one or more migration rules may include criteria for determining how the migration of data from the source storage devices to the target storage devices is carried out. The one or more migration rules may specify, for example, an amount of network bandwidth that may be utilized to migrate data from the source storage devices to the target storage devices, a maximum amount of time that migration of the data from the source storage devices to the target storage devices must be completed within, a maximum number of write operations that may be utilized to migrate the data from the source storage devices to the target storage devices, and so on. The one or more migration rules may therefore be utilized to ensure that data is migrated from the source storage devices to the target storage devices in such a way that some predetermined policy is enforced (e.g., overall system performance is not degraded below an acceptable threshold or some other, the migration cannot consume more than a predetermined amount of system resources, and so on).

These embodiments can also include selecting one or more source storage devices for removal from the storage array. Selecting one or more source storage devices for removal from the storage array may be carried, for example, through the use a user interface (e.g., a GUI presented on a display screen) that presents an inventory of the storage devices that are included in the storage array and that also allows the user of the user interface to select one or more source storage devices that are to be designated for removal from the storage array. Alternatively, selecting one or more source storage devices for removal from the storage array may be carried out through the use of an automated process performed by a special purpose module of computer program instructions that is executing on computer hardware within the storage array. Such a special purpose module of computer program instructions may be a standalone module or may be included within a larger module such as, for example, the array operating environment described above. Such a special purpose module of computer program instructions may be executing, for example, on one or more computer processors within an array management server, on one or more computer processors within a storage array controller that is similar to the storage array controllers described above, or on other computer hardware within the storage array. In such an example, one or more source storage devices may be selected for removal from the storage array because a particular storage device has reached a certain age, because a particular storage device has performed a predetermined number of program/erase (‘P/E’) cycles, and so on. In such a way, selecting one or more source storage devices for removal from the storage array may be a user-initiated process, a system-initiated process, or any combination thereof.

Identifying one or more target storage devices for receiving data stored on the one or more source storage devices in dependence upon one or more selection rules can include identifying one or more storage devices that have been inserted into the storage array within a predetermined period of time. The predetermined period of time may be expressed in absolute terms such that the storage array identifies storage devices that have been inserted into the storage array within the last hour, the last 24 hours, and so on. The predetermined period of time may alternatively be expressed in relative terms such that the storage array identifies storage devices that have been inserted into the storage array most recently, since the occurrence of some event such as a system upgrade, and so on. By identifying one or more storage devices that have been inserted into the storage array within a predetermined period of time, the storage array may be able to identify storage devices that are more likely to have sufficient capacity available for storing, as part of a data migration process, data that is presently stored on the one or more source storage devices.

Identifying one or more target storage devices for receiving data stored on the one or more source storage devices in dependence upon one or more selection rules can also include identifying one or more target storage devices whose capacity utilization meets one or more utilization criterion. The utilization criterion may be expressed in absolute terms such that the storage array identifies storage devices that have 100 GB or more of available storage, 1 TB or more of available storage, and so on. The utilization criterion may alternatively be expressed in relative terms such that the storage array identifies storage devices that have 10% or more of their total capacity available, 20% or more of their total capacity available, and so on. By identifying one or more target storage devices whose capacity utilization meets one or more utilization criterion, the storage array may be able to identify storage devices that are more likely to have sufficient capacity available for storing, as part of a data migration process, data that is presently stored on the one or more source storage devices.

The data stored on the one or more source storage devices may be part of a data set that is striped across a plurality of storage devices. For example, the data that is stored on the one or more source storage devices may be part of a RAID stripe where data that is stored on another storage device is part of the RAID stripe. In such an example, redundancy data may be stored on another storage device in the storage array. Such redundancy data may be used to rebuild data in the RAID stripe in the event that one of the storage devices that contain the data fails or otherwise becomes unavailable.

Identifying one or more target storage devices for receiving data stored on the one or more source storage devices in dependence upon one or more selection rules can also include identifying one or more target storage devices in dependence upon a data redundancy policy. The data redundancy policy may include information and rules that govern how data that is part of a data set that is striped across a plurality of storage devices. Consider an example in which the data set includes a sufficient amount of redundancy data such that two storage devices that each contain a unique data stripe may fail without resulting in the loss of data, as the data stored on the two failed storage devices may be rebuilt. In such an example, the data redundancy policy may therefore specify that unique stripes of data should not be stored on three storage devices that are powered by a single power supply, as the loss of the single power supply would result in data loss that the storage array could not recover from by simply rebuilding the lost data. As such, identifying one or more target storage devices in dependence upon a data redundancy policy may be carried out by identifying those the storage devices in the storage array that are powered by a power supply that is not responsible for powering two or more additional storage devices that already store a portion of the data set. Readers will appreciate that the data redundancy policy may include many other examples of information and rules that govern how data that is part of a data set that is striped across a plurality of storage devices.

Identifying one or more target storage devices for receiving data stored on the one or more source storage devices in dependence upon one or more selection rules can also include identifying one or more target storage devices in dependence upon a location of one or more source storage devices. The location of one or more source storage devices may be specified, for example, as an identification of a slot and chassis that a particular source storage device is mounted within. Identifying one or more target storage devices in dependence upon the location of one or more source storage devices may be carried out, for example, by selecting a target storage device that is most physically proximate to the source storage device, by selecting a target storage device that is mounted within the same chassis as the source storage device, by selecting a target storage device that is in the same data center or other physical location as the source storage device, and so on. Readers will appreciate that by identifying one or more target storage devices in dependence upon the location of one or more source storage devices, benefits may be experienced that would be absent from an embodiment where the location of the one or more source storage devices is not taken into consideration. For example, by selecting a target storage device that is mounted within the same chassis as the source storage device, the amount of inter-chassis network traffic can be reduced relative to an embodiment where data on a source storage device in a first chassis is migrated to a target storage device mounted in a second chassis. Likewise, by selecting a target storage device that is in the same data center or other physical location as the source storage device, sensitive data that is stored on a source storage device in a first data center does not need to be migrated over a network that is external to the first data center in order to migrate the sensitive data to a target storage device in a second data center. Readers will appreciate that identifying one or more target storage devices in dependence upon a location of one or more source storage devices may be carried out in many other ways in pursuit of many other objectives.

Identifying one or more target storage devices for receiving data stored on the one or more source storage devices in dependence upon one or more selection rules can also include identifying one or more target storage devices in dependence upon membership information for one or more redundancy groups. The membership information for one or more redundancy groups may include, for example, information identifying the particular storage devices that are included in a redundancy group. Each storage device in the redundancy group may store data or redundancy data that may be used to rebuild data in the event that a storage device in the redundancy group fails. Identifying one or more target storage devices in dependence upon membership information for one or more redundancy groups may be carried out, for example, by selecting a storage device that is not already included in the redundancy group as the target storage device for receiving data that is stored on a source storage device that is a member of the redundancy group.

In some embodiments, migrating the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices in dependence upon one or more migration rules can include performing the migration of the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices only during periods of time where utilization of the storage array is within a predetermined utilization range. The predetermined utilization range may specify acceptable ranges for a variety of metrics such as, for example, the number of TOPS being serviced by the storage array, the utilization of one or more processing resources (e.g., CPUs) in the storage array, the amount of bandwidth being utilized across one or more data communications links in the storage array, the rate at which data is being written to the storage array, the depth of one or more queues in the storage array, and so on. In such an example, the operating conditions of the storage array may be monitored to determine whether the storage array is currently operating within the predetermined utilization range. If the storage array is currently operating within the predetermined utilization range, migration of the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices may be performed. If the storage array is not currently operating within the predetermined utilization range, however, migration of the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices may be delayed until system utilization decreases.

Although the example described above relates to an embodiment where the predetermined utilization range may specify acceptable ranges for a variety of metrics and migration of the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices is performed only during periods of time where utilization of the storage array is within a predetermined utilization range, readers will appreciate that other embodiments are possible. In one alternative embodiment, the predetermined utilization range may specify unacceptable ranges for a variety of metrics and migration of the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices may be performed only during periods of time where utilization of the storage array is not within the predetermined utilization range. Furthermore, a combination of metrics may be utilized to determine whether migration of the data may be performed, and such a combination of metrics may even be used by applying a weighted formula to determine whether overall system utilization is at a point where migration of the data may be performed. In another embodiment, migration of the data may only be performed to the extent that the added work associated with migrating the data does not cause system utilization to go outside of acceptable levels as specified by the predetermined utilization range.

In some embodiments, migrating the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices in dependence upon one or more migration rules can also include migrating the data such that one or more performance metrics for the storage array remain within a predetermined performance range. The predetermined performance range may specify acceptable ranges for a variety of metrics such as, for example, the number of TOPS that the storage array must be available to service, the maximum response time that the storage array should provide to users when servicing I/O requests, the maximum write latency that the storage array should exhibit when writing data to the storage array, and so on. Such a predetermined performance range may be determined, for example, based on a service level agreement and may represent the level of performance that the storage array should provide to users of the storage array. As such, the extent to which the data stored on the one or more source storage devices is migrated to the one or more target storage devices should be limited such that the performance metrics for the storage array remain within the predetermined performance range. Readers will appreciate that in situations where the performance metrics for the storage array are barely within the predetermined performance range, a relatively small amount of system resources may be allocated for migrating the data compared to situations where the performance metrics for the storage array are well within the predetermined performance range. Migrating the data such that one or more performance metrics for the storage array remain within the predetermined performance range may therefore be carried out by initially only allocating a relatively small amount of system resources for migrating the data and gradually increasing the amount of system resources allocated for migrating the data, so long as the one or more performance metrics for the storage array remain within a predetermined performance range. If the one or more performance metrics for the storage array fall outside of the predetermined performance range (or approach falling outside of the predetermined performance range), the amount of system resources allocated for migrating the data may be decreased. Readers will appreciate that system performance may be periodically evaluated and the amount of system resources allocated for migrating the data may be adjusted as appropriate.

Although the example described above relates to an embodiment where the predetermined performance range may specify acceptable ranges for a variety of metrics and migration of the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices is performed only during periods of time where the storage array is operating within the predetermined performance range, readers will appreciate that other embodiments are possible. In one alternative embodiment, the predetermined performance range may specify unacceptable ranges for a variety of metrics and migration of the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices may be performed only during periods of time where system performance is not within the predetermined performance range. Furthermore, a combination of metrics may be utilized to determine whether migration of the data may be performed, and such a combination of metrics may even be used by applying a weighted formula to determine whether overall system performance is at a point where migration of the data may be performed.

In some embodiments, migrating the data stored on the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices in dependence upon one or more migration rules can also include migrating the data using no more than a predetermined number of write operations. The predetermined number of write operations may be set, for example, by a system administrator or other administrative entity. Alternatively, the predetermined number of write operations may be set as a configuration parameter for the storage array. Readers will appreciate that the predetermined number of write operations may be a static value, or a dynamic value that changes in dependence upon the current operating conditions. For example, the predetermined number of write operations may increase during periods of time where the storage array is not being heavily utilized and the predetermined number of write operations may be decreased during periods of time where the storage array is being heavily utilized.

Some embodiments also include presenting, to a user, an indication that the data has been migrated from the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices. Presenting an indication that the data has been migrated from the one or more source storage devices to the one or more target storage devices may be carried out, for example, by sending a message indicating that migration has completed to a phone number or email address associated with the user, by illuminating a light associated the source storage device once migration has completed, by sending a message to a GUI that is utilized by the user once migration has completed, and so on.

Some embodiments also include selecting, by the storage array, one or more source storage devices for removal from the storage array. Selecting one or more source storage devices for removal from the storage array may be carried out, for example, by a system management module executing on the storage array. A particular storage device may be selected for removal from the storage array, for example, because the storage device has reached a certain age, because the storage device has reached a certain utilization threshold such as performing a predetermined number of P/E cycles, because the storage device has been targeted for replacement by a predetermined update schedule, and so on. In such an example, the system management module may subsequently issue a storage device evacuation event associated with the storage devices that are selected for removal from the storage array.

In some embodiments, selecting one or more source storage devices for removal from the storage array can include identifying one or more oldest storage devices in the storage array, where the one or more oldest storage devices in the storage array are selected for removal from the storage array. Identifying one or more oldest storage devices in the storage array may be carried out, for example, by examining storage device information that is maintained in the storage array and includes information identifying the age of each storage device, by requesting information identifying the age of a storage device from each of the storage devices, and so on.

In some embodiments, selecting one or more source storage devices for removal from the storage array can also include identifying one or more slowest storage devices in the storage array, where the one or more slowest storage devices in the storage array are selected for removal from the storage array. Identifying one or more slowest storage devices in the storage array may be carried out, for example, by tracking the average amount of TOPS serviced by each storage device over a period of time, by tracking the amount of data written to each storage device over a period of time, by tracking the average write latency exhibited by each storage device over a period of time, and so on. In such an example, the slowest storage devices may be determined based on a single metric, based on a weighted combination of metrics, based on an unweighted combination of metrics, or in other ways.

In some embodiments, selecting one or more source storage devices for removal from the storage array can include identifying one or more low capacity storage devices in the storage array, where the one or more low capacity storage devices in the storage array are selected for removal from the storage array. Identifying one or more low capacity storage devices in the storage array may be carried out, for example, by examining storage device information that is maintained in the storage array and includes information identifying the storage capacity of each storage device, by requesting information identifying the storage capacity of a storage device from each of the storage devices, and so on.

In some embodiments, selecting one or more source storage devices for removal from the storage array can include identifying one or more most worn storage devices in the storage array, where the one or more most worn storage devices in the storage array are selected for removal from the storage array. Identifying one or more most worn storage devices in the storage array may be carried out, for example, by examining storage device information that is maintained in the storage array and includes information such as the number of P/E cycles performed by each storage device, by requesting information identifying the number of P/E cycles performed by a storage device from each of the storage devices, and so on.

In some embodiments, selecting one or more source storage devices for removal from the storage array can include identifying one or more storage devices in the storage array that are associated with a particular application, where the one or more storage devices in the storage array that are associated with the particular application are selected for removal from the storage array. Identifying one or more storage devices in the storage array that are associated with a particular application may be carried out, for example, by examining storage device information that is maintained in the storage array and includes information such as an identification of each application that uses each storage device. In such an example, storage devices that are associated with applications that are no longer executing may be prioritized for removal from the storage array.

Some embodiments also include identifying, by the storage array in dependence upon one or more selection rules, one or more target storage devices for receiving data stored on the one or more source storage devices. Identifying one or more target storage devices for receiving data stored on the one or more source storage devices may be carried out by a special purpose module of computer program instructions that is executing on computer hardware within the storage array. Such a special purpose module of computer program instructions may be a standalone module or may be included within a larger module such as, for example, the array operating environment described above. Such a special purpose module of computer program instructions may be executing, for example, on one or more computer processors within an array management server, on one or more computer processors within a storage array controller that is similar to the storage array controllers described above, or on other computer hardware within the storage array.

In some embodiments, the one or more target storage devices for receiving data stored on the one or more source storage devices are identified in dependence upon one or more selection rules. The one or more selection rules may include criteria for determining which storage devices in the storage array should be selected as the target storage devices that will ultimately store data that is presently stored on the storage devices that are to be evacuated from the storage array. The selection rules may specify, for example, that storage devices in the same enclosure as the one or more source storage devices should be identified as the target storage devices, that storage devices that are of the same type as the one or more source storage devices should be identified as the target storage devices, that storage devices that have the largest amount of available capacity should be identified as the target storage devices, that storage devices that have been most recently inserted into the storage array should be identified as the target storage devices, that storage devices that have the lowest amount of wear should be identified as the target storage devices, and so on. The one or more selection rules may therefore be utilized to intelligently determine which storage devices in the storage array should be selected as the one or more target storage devices.

Reducing write access to the one or more source storage devices can include redirecting write access requests directed to the one or more source storage devices to other storage devices in the storage array. Redirecting write access requests directed to the one or more source storage devices to other storage devices in the storage array may be carried out, for example, by a storage array controller as described above. In such an example, the storage array controller may maintain a list of storage devices that are associated with a storage device evacuation event and may cause write requests that would otherwise be serviced by the storage devices that are associated with a storage device evacuation event to be redirected to other storage devices in the storage array that are not the source of data for a storage device evacuation event.

Example embodiments are described largely in the context of a fully functional computer system. Readers of skill in the art will recognize, however, that the present disclosure also may be embodied in a computer program product disposed upon computer readable storage media for use with any suitable data processing system. Such computer readable storage media may be any storage medium for machine-readable information, including magnetic media, optical media, or other suitable media. Examples of such media include magnetic disks in hard drives or diskettes, compact disks for optical drives, magnetic tape, and others as will occur to those of skill in the art. Persons skilled in the art will immediately recognize that any computer system having suitable programming means will be capable of executing the steps of the method as embodied in a computer program product. Persons skilled in the art will recognize also that, although some of the example embodiments described in this specification are oriented to software installed and executing on computer hardware, nevertheless, alternative embodiments implemented as firmware or as hardware are well within the scope of the present disclosure.

Embodiments can include a system, a method, and/or a computer program product. The computer program product may include a computer readable storage medium (or media) having computer readable program instructions thereon for causing a processor to carry out aspects of the present disclosure.

The computer readable storage medium can be a tangible device that can retain and store instructions for use by an instruction execution device. The computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but is not limited to, an electronic storage device, a magnetic storage device, an optical storage device, an electromagnetic storage device, a semiconductor storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. A non-exhaustive list of more specific examples of the computer readable storage medium includes the following: a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), a static random access memory (SRAM), a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), a digital versatile disk (DVD), a memory stick, a floppy disk, a mechanically encoded device such as punch-cards or raised structures in a groove having instructions recorded thereon, and any suitable combination of the foregoing. A computer readable storage medium, as used herein, is not to be construed as being transitory signals per se, such as radio waves or other freely propagating electromagnetic waves, electromagnetic waves propagating through a waveguide or other transmission media (e.g., light pulses passing through a fiber-optic cable), or electrical signals transmitted through a wire.

Computer readable program instructions described herein can be downloaded to respective computing/processing devices from a computer readable storage medium or to an external computer or external storage device via a network, for example, the Internet, a local area network, a wide area network and/or a wireless network. The network may comprise copper transmission cables, optical transmission fibers, wireless transmission, routers, firewalls, switches, gateway computers and/or edge servers. A network adapter card or network interface in each computing/processing device receives computer readable program instructions from the network and forwards the computer readable program instructions for storage in a computer readable storage medium within the respective computing/processing device.

Computer readable program instructions for carrying out operations of the present disclosure may be assembler instructions, instruction-set-architecture (ISA) instructions, machine instructions, machine dependent instructions, microcode, firmware instructions, state-setting data, or either source code or object code written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Smalltalk, C++ or the like, and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programming languages. The computer readable program instructions may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider). In some embodiments, electronic circuitry including, for example, programmable logic circuitry, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), or programmable logic arrays (PLA) may execute the computer readable program instructions by utilizing state information of the computer readable program instructions to personalize the electronic circuitry, in order to perform aspects of the present disclosure.

Aspects of the present disclosure are described herein with reference to flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems), and computer program products according to some embodiments of the disclosure. It will be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented by computer readable program instructions.

These computer readable program instructions may be provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via the processor of the computer or other programmable data processing apparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks. These computer readable program instructions may also be stored in a computer readable storage medium that can direct a computer, a programmable data processing apparatus, and/or other devices to function in a particular manner, such that the computer readable storage medium having instructions stored therein comprises an article of manufacture including instructions which implement aspects of the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

The computer readable program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, or other device to cause a series of operational steps to be performed on the computer, other programmable apparatus or other device to produce a computer implemented process, such that the instructions which execute on the computer, other programmable apparatus, or other device implement the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate the architecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementations of systems, methods, and computer program products according to various embodiments of the present disclosure. In this regard, each block in the flowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portion of instructions, which comprises one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function(s). In some alternative implementations, the functions noted in the block may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantially concurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be noted that each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-based systems that perform the specified functions or acts or carry out combinations of special purpose hardware and computer instructions. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A storage system comprising: a plurality of storage devices and a controller, wherein the storage devices are configured into one or more write groups, and the controller is configured to carry out: detecting that one or more source storage devices in a storage system that includes a plurality of storage devices has been designated for removal from the storage system; and responsive to detecting that the source storage devices have been designated for removal from the storage system: encrypting a device key for each remaining storage device using a master secret to generate an encrypted device key for each remaining storage device; generating, for each write group, a first plurality of shares from the master secret; creating, from each share of the first plurality of shares, a second plurality of shares equal to a minimum number of the remaining storage devices required from each write group for a quorum to boot the storage system; and storing, for each remaining storage device, the encrypted device key and a respective share of the second plurality of shares in the remaining storage devices.
 2. The storage system of claim 1, wherein the number of shares required to reconstruct the master secret is made equal to a number of storage devices in a write group less an allowed number of failed storage devices.
 3. The storage system of claim 1, wherein the number of storage devices in each write group is not less than eight and the allowed number of failed storage devices comprises four.
 4. The storage system of claim 1, wherein the number of storage devices in each write group is less than eight and the allowed number of failed storage devices comprises a number less than half of the number of storage devices in each write group.
 5. The storage system of claim 4, wherein the controller is further configured to carry out the step of notifying a user to add additional storage devices to one or more write groups.
 6. The storage system of claim 1, wherein encrypting the device key further comprises encrypting the device key using the master secret and a value unique to the corresponding storage device.
 7. The storage system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further configured to: reconstruct the master secret; decrypt one or more encrypted device keys using the master secret; store the decrypted device keys in a volatile memory; and use the decrypted device keys to decrypt data stored on one or more of the storage devices.
 8. The storage system of claim 1, wherein the controller is further configured to carry out the steps of: generating a new master secret; encrypting each device key using the new master secret to generate a new encrypted device key for each storage device; generating, for each write group, a plurality of shares from the new master secret including creating a number of shares required to reconstruct the master secret equal to the minimum number of storage devices required from each write group for the quorum to boot the storage system less an allowed number of failed storage devices; and storing, for each storage device, the new encrypted device key and a separate respective share in each storage device.
 9. The storage system of claim 8, wherein generating a new master secret further comprises generating the new master secret periodically on a predetermined schedule.
 10. The storage system of claim 8, wherein generating a new master secret further comprises generating the new master secret in response to detecting a failed storage device.
 11. A method comprising: detecting that one or more source storage devices in a storage system that includes a plurality of storage devices has been designated for removal from the storage system; and responsive to detecting that the source storage devices have been designated for removal from the storage system: encrypting a device key for each remaining storage device using a master secret to generate an encrypted device key for each remaining storage device; generating, for each write group, a first plurality of shares from the master secret; creating, from each share of the first plurality of shares, a second plurality of shares equal to a minimum number of the remaining storage devices required from each write group for a quorum to boot the storage system; and storing, for each remaining storage device, the encrypted device key and a respective share of the second plurality of shares in the remaining storage devices.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the number of shares required to reconstruct the master secret is made equal to a number of storage devices in a write group less an allowed number of failed storage devices.
 13. The method of claim 11, wherein the number of storage devices in each write group is not less than eight and the allowed number of failed storage devices comprises four.
 14. The method of claim 11, wherein the number of storage devices in each write group is less than eight and the allowed number of failed storage devices comprises a number less than half of the number of storage devices in each write group.
 15. The method of claim 14, further comprising notifying a user to add additional storage devices to one or more write groups.
 16. The method of claim 11, wherein encrypting the device key further comprises encrypting the device key using the master secret and a value unique to the corresponding storage device.
 17. The method of claim 11, further comprising: reconstructing the master secret; decrypting one or more encrypted device keys using the master secret; storing the decrypted device keys in a volatile memory; and using the decrypted device keys to decrypt data stored on one or more of the storage devices.
 18. The method of claim 11, further comprising: generating a new master secret; encrypting each device key using the new master secret to generate a new encrypted device key for each storage device; generating, for each write group, a plurality of shares from the new master secret including creating a number of shares required to reconstruct the master secret equal to the minimum number of storage devices required from each write group for the quorum to boot the storage system less an allowed number of failed storage devices; and storing, for each storage device, the new encrypted device key and a separate share of the plurality of shares in each storage device.
 19. The method of claim 18, wherein generating a new master secret further comprises generating the new master secret periodically on a predetermined schedule.
 20. A computer program product disposed on a computer readable medium, the computer program product including computer program instructions that, when executed, carry out the steps of: detecting that one or more source storage devices in a storage system that includes a plurality of storage devices has been designated for removal from the storage system; and responsive to detecting that the source storage devices have been designated for removal from the storage system: encrypting a device key for each remaining storage device using a master secret to generate an encrypted device key for each remaining storage device; generating, for each write group, a first plurality of shares from the master secret; creating, from each share of the first plurality of shares, a second plurality of shares equal to a minimum number of the remaining storage devices required from each write group for a quorum to boot the storage system; and storing, for each remaining storage device, the encrypted device key and a respective share of the second plurality of shares in the remaining storage devices. 